This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

SAN DIEGO — UC San Diego graduate Jessica Meir has been tapped for a six-month mission on the International Space Station.

Meir has dreamed of traveling to space since she was a first-grader, and that dream will finally be realized in September when she co-pilots a Soyuz spacecraft to the space station, the San Diego Union-Tribune writes. She’ll remain on ISS for six months doing scientific research.

Meir earned a doctorate in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD in 2009, according to her NASA bio. She started working with the agency in 2000 and completed astronaut candidate training in July 2015.

Meir’s background expertise is based in research on the physiology of animals in extreme environments.

In a video posted by the ISS Twitter account, Meir spoke more about her excitement for the voyage: