On this day in 1959 – May 30th – American geophysicist and planetary scientist, Claudia Joan Alexander, was born in Vancouver, Canada.

With degrees in geophysics and space physics, Alexander researched as a planetary scientist. She was the project manager for the Galileo mission in its final phase, and the science coordinator for the Cassini mission to Saturn. In 2000, Alexander was the project manager for NASA's contribution to the European Rosetta mission to Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.