16 Spring 2015

When Barbara Landrum Rice ’62AFE accepted her position as a re-

search dietitian working at NASA’s John-son Space Center in Houston, Texas, shethought it would be a two-year role.

at was 25 years ago.Rice, a native of Franklin, has forged a

long career at NASA as a contractor,studying the nutritional needs of astro-nauts before, during, and aer theirspace flights in the Human Adaptationand Countermeasures Group.

“Student groups often ask me, ‘Whatdid you do in your background to beable to work for NASA?’” says Rice,who graduated from the University ofKentucky with a degree in dieteticsfrom the School of Home Economics,now called Human Environmental Sci-ences in the College of Agriculture,Food and Environment.

“e truth is, when I was hired I knewnothing about microgravity or space-flight. But the woman who hired mesaid, ‘We can teach you those things. Youhave intrinsic values and experiences thatwe can’t teach,’” Rice says.

Early TrainingRice grew up in an agricultural family of

nine children. Her mother taught Riceand her siblings from an early age how tohelp grow and prepare their own foodsand make their own clothing. “We onlyshopped in town, which was, I think,about 12 miles from our home, on Satur-day aernoons. It was a very differentworld than it is now. We made almost

everything ourselves. Looking back, I’mvery grateful to have had that type of up-bringing,” says Rice, who credits those ex-periences with her lifelong passion forhealthful foods and style of eating.

As Rice and her six sisters grew, therewas never any question about their edu-cational path. “Our mother was adamantthat all of the girls would go to college ortechnical school,” Rice says. “She justsaid, ‘is is what you need to do, andyou can do it if you work really hard.’”

Rice followed her four older sistersto UK, where they also had majoredand graduated with degrees in homeeconomics.

“I was familiar with UK from my sis-ters’ experiences there, and also from themany camps and conferences that I hadattended there through my 4H work,”Rice says. “Really, it had been driven intome by my mother that UK was the bestplace for me to study and get a degree.”

Once on campus, she says she foundherself motivated and shaped by an-other strong woman: Abby Marlatt,who was the director of the School ofHome Economics.

“Abby Marlatt taught all of our ad-vanced nutrition classes. She was a veryvocal person who didn’t always follow allthe rules. She would oen stand on oneof the main streets and hold signs in sup-port of Black freedom and other civilrights issues and was just so bold. I re-member thinking she had such courage— not to mention a very good knowl-edge of nutrition,” says Rice.

When Rice enrolled at UK, shewasn’t certain of her choice of major. Itwas a chance assignment to be a dietit-ian’s assistant during a summer intern-ship at Grady Memorial Hospital inAtlanta, Georgia, following her fresh-man year that solidified her careerpath.

“at summer, I was able to spend a lotof time with the dietitians, and I realizedI really liked this work,” she says. “atwas really when I decided to go into di-etetics and nutrition.”

In the following summers while atUK, Rice held dietetics internships atCentral Baptist Hospital in Lexingtonand at Methodist Evangelical Hospitalin Louisville. Then, after graduation,she moved to California, where sheworked for more than 20 years as a clin-ical dietitian and nutrition consultantin hospitals and schools in Los Angelesand surrounding areas. While workingfull time and balancing motherhood,Rice completed a master’s degree in nu-trition and foods from California StateUniversity.

“My goal, from the beginning, has al-ways been to help people have betterhealth. My focus, in almost all of myjobs has been to prevent problems.That’s what drives me,” she says. “I’venever been interested in working in fa-cilities where people are already reallysick. I’d rather work in facilities wherepeople are relatively healthy, where Ican work with them to be even health-ier and prevent disease.

BarbaraRice:

By Robin Roenker

A lofty career helping NASA with nutrition

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18 Spring 2015

“Once disease occurs, it’s a lot harder toundo. at’s always been my mantra — totry to prevent disease. It’s a lot easier toprevent obesity and diabetes, for example,than to try to treat the health ramifica-tions that come from them,” she says.

Rice has spent over five decades as a di-etitian in a career that has included posi-tions as director of school food servicesin Culver City, California, therapeuticdietitian at Los Angeles’ Kaiser Founda-tion Hospital, and assistant director anddirector of training in nutrition at Chil-dren’s Hospital of Los Angeles, in addi-tion to her NASA position. Rice says shehas seen a drastic decline in people’soverall mobility and exercise levels. “eother big contributing factor to the obe-sity epidemic is the increased use of fast

foods and prepackaged foods, ratherthan taking time to make things fromscratch,” she says.

“We need to be doing what we can tokeep activity levels up and just keep peo-ple moving,” Rice says.

Career at NASABy 1990, Rice and her husband, Phil,

whom she’d met in Los Angeles, hadmoved to Texas, where he was trans-ferred. When Rice saw a job opening fora research dietitian position at the John-son Space Center, she applied.

“In the early days at NASA, theyweren’t worried a lot about the nutri-tion of the astronauts, since they weregoing on such short flights. It was morelike going on a camping trip. They

wanted to send them off with foodsthey liked, and when they came back, ifthey were nutritionally deficient insomething, then they could turn thataround. In flights that short — at thattime, most were under 13 days —you’re not going to develop any nutri-tional deficiencies,” Rice says.

But in the early 1990s, with theprospect of astronauts facing longerspace flights and long tenures of time atthe International Space Station, Rice saysit was apparent to NASA medical per-sonnel that research was needed to deter-mine exactly which nutrients, and howmuch, the astronauts needed duringspace flight.

NASA set aside funds to hire a re-search dietitian, the position Rice

Barbara Rice has spent over five decades as a dietitian in a career that has included positions as director of school foodservices in Culver City, California, therapeutic dietitian at Los Angeles’ Kaiser Foundation Hospital, and assistant directorand director of training in nutrition at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, in addition to her NASA position.

landed, and to conduct a few specially-earmarked research flights with crewmembers to monitor their nutrition andbiochemistry levels during flight.

“e woman hiring me said, ‘We’ve gotthese research flights coming up that willprobably give us all the data we’re goingto need to answer all the questions we’regoing to have. We may not need you formore than a couple of years,’” Rice recalls.“But here I am, 25 years later.”

Over the years, Rice has worked closelywith many NASA flight teams, oenforging close personal relationships withindividual astronauts.

“I may see an astronaut weekly or evenmore frequently for one or two yearsuntil their individual health goal is met,”says Rice, whose job includes nutritioncounseling for the NASA flight crews.

As astronauts prepare for a flight,Rice’s work with them amplifies. “Dur-ing preflight testing protocols, I see themthree to four times per day at each oftheir meals to monitor their dietary in-take,” she says.

She sometimes confers with astronautsat the International Space Station viavideo conference, if they have questionsabout their nutritional needs while inflight. Other days find her logging longhours in front of her computer, analyz-ing data obtained from the astronauts’dietary records.

Ultimately, Rice and her colleagues’ re-search has confirmed that astronauts’ dailycaloric and nutritional needs are much thesame in flight as they are on Earth, thoughastronauts need less iron in microgravityand Vitamin D supplemented due to theirlack of sun exposure in space.

Over the years, their research has helpedto compile nutritional knowledge that isalso beneficial to people on Earth, she says.

Currently, for example, Rice and her co-workers are conducting a study to deter-mine whether limiting the amount ofanimal protein the astronauts consume andamplifying their potassium intake while inflight could help diminish the amount ofcalcium loss evident in their bones. “If wecan do that,” Rice says, “we may be able tohelp people see that if you eat less meat andeat more vegetables and fruits, which aregood sources of potassium, then you couldhelp offset osteoporosis.”

Over the years, her career at NASA hashad many memorable moments, includ-ing the opportunity to work as a nutri-tionist on a NASA team that offeredconsultation during operations to rescuethe 33 men trapped for 69 days in theChilean mining accident that capturedthe world’s attention in 2010.

By the time a supply line could reachthe miners, they had been withoutmuch food and water for days. Rice andthe NASA team of physicians advisedproviding nutritional formula to theminers gradually in a process called“refeeding,” similar to the steps used totreat recovering anorexia patients, workthat Rice did for several years in Cali-fornia.

“In many ways, it made sense thatthey called NASA and asked for help,”she says. “We’re in the business ofsending people off to harsh environ-ments and in dealing with emergenciesthat may pop up.”

Another time, an astronaut was so ap-preciative of Rice’s help in reaching hisweight goal over the course of a yearthat he offered her the rare opportu-nity to have one of her own personalmementoes taken up into space. “Ichose for him to take a small gold shut-tle pendant on which I have since en-

graved the dates that it was in micro-gravity,” Rice says.

But her most deeply-cherished NASAmemories involve close friendshipswith the members of the final Colum-bia mission, which tragically ended inan explosion on Feb. 1, 2003, killing allseven crewmembers aboard.

“I worked closely with the final Co-lumbia mission for about three yearsprior to launch. When the crewlaunched, I received a beautiful rose bou-quet from them that was very special tome, especially since the vehicle ulti-mately failed. About six months aer theflight, I received an autographed crewphoto that had been signed by all ofthem prior to launch. I keep it with a col-lage of their flight patches in a framedcase, hanging on my office wall,” Ricesays. “It was a pleasure to work with suchfine people.”

While she has no plans to retire im-mediately, Rice says she looks forwardto eventually having more time to visither grown daughter, Katie, who lives inMaryland, and to volunteer as a docentto assist patients at Houston’s TexasMedical Center.

And, she plans to travel a lot. “I wantto go on a safari to Africa,” Rice says.“at’s definitely on my bucket list.” n

www.ukalumni.net 19

Barbara Rice and her sisters established the

Bessie G. Landrum Scholarship Fund in

Human Environmental Sciences at UK in their

mother’s name, as a way of honoring her

passion and drive for their higher education.

Rice – a member of the UK Alumni Associa-

tion’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni – also later

founded a dietetics scholarship in her

own name, as well as a UK library fund

for use in purchasing dietetics and

nutrition publications.