 She also studied elephant seals while they were diving in the Pacific Ocean off Northern California.Meir did post-doctoral research at the University of British Columbia, raising bar-headed geese so their tolerance of high altitude and low oxygen levels during flight over the Himalayas could be studied in a controlled environment.For the 2012 academic year she continued her research as an assistant professor of anesthesia at the Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital and then took a leave of absence to enter the astronaut corps.