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From Navy Fighter Pilot to Drone Advocate, Meet Missy Cummings

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published November 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM EST
Missy Cummings was one of the U.S. Navy's first female fighter pilots. She now directs the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University.
Missy Cummings
Missy Cummings was one of the U.S. Navy's first female fighter pilots. She now directs the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University.
Missy Cummings was one of the U.S. Navy's first female fighter pilots. She now directs the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University.
Credit Missy Cummings
Missy Cummings was one of the U.S. Navy's first female fighter pilots. She now directs the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University.

Meet Missy Cummings

  

Although the word drone may at first evoke an image of a stealth killing machine, the work of Mary 'Missy' Cummings proves drones are much more than that initial thought. 

Cummings directs the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University, where she builds interfaces for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and studies the social and ethical implications of technological advancement. She believes thatUAVshave the potential to dramatically impact industries like agriculture and medicine as well as the commercial sector. 

Cummings started researching the relationship between humans and technology after spending 10 years in the military. She was one of the first female fighter pilots in the US Navy, but her experience witnessing many colleagues die in preventable accidents encouraged her to devote her career to bettering and advancing our technology. Cummings recently helped a national task force develop recommendations for US Drone Policy. HostFrankStasiotalks to Cummings about her life and work.

Watch Missy Cummings on the Colbert Report in 2011:The Colbert Report

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Colbert Report on Facebook

Cummings was also featured on The Daily Show in 2013:The Daily Show

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Copyright 2014 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio