who played samantha wildman on star trek voyager
Nancy Hower Nancy had a recurring role as Ensign Samantha Wildman on the popular sci-fi series Star Trek: Voyager. She appeared in eight episodes spanning the series' seven-year run. Her character in the series was named after a real life 7-year-old girl who died in an accident. The little girl's parents decided to donate their daughter's organs. The ailing wife of one of Voyager's writers received one of the girl's kidneys. The writer, Jimmy Diggs, decided to honor the child's memory by naming Nancy's Voyager persona after the little girl. Because the real Samantha Wildman had been fond of animals, Jimmy Diggs thus made Ensign Wildman head of Voyager's xenobiology department. Ensign Samantha Wildman had the distinction of being the first of two crew members with a child aboard Voyager (The other was Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres in the final episode of the series, "Endgame II").