Sunita Williams

Sunita Lyn "Suni" Williams (born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and United States Navy officer of Indian-Slovenian descent. She holds the records for total spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes). Williams was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and Expedition 15. In 2012, she served as a flight engineer on Expedition 32 and then commander of Expedition 33.

Early life and education

Sunita Williams was born in Euclid, Ohio, to Indian American neuroanatomist Deepak Pandya and Slovene American Ursuline Bonnie Pandya (née Zalokar) residing in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Sunita is the youngest of three siblings; her brother Jay Thomas is four years older and her sister Dina Anna is three years older. Williams’ paternal ancestry is from Jhulasan, Mehsana district in Gujarat, India, while her maternal great-grandmother Mary Bohinc (originally Marija Bohinjec), born September 5, 1890 in Leše, Slovenia immigrated to America as an eleven-year-old girl with her mother, an 1891 Slovene emigrant Ursula Bohinc née Strajhar.