SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- for a mission to space that will make her the first African-American woman to work as a crew member on the International Space Station.

Syracuse native Jeanette Epps will serve as a flight engineer for Expeditions 56 and 57, the first of which is scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan in May 2018.

The Corcoran High School graduate has been working toward travelling to space since she became one of just nine people chosen for NASA's 20th astronaut class from a pool of 3,500 applicants in 2009.

Epps earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Le Moyne College in 1992 and completed a master's of science in 1994. She received her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland in 2000.