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I remember when I worked for the
American Dental Association.

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So I remember telling people Oh to
design a material to to survive the oral

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environment is so challenging, it's
really tough.

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There's abrasion, prescription medication, you have ice cream, piping hot coffee 100

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degrees or more. Every 45 minutes we've
got solar radiation, x-rays, thermal

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cycling, atomic oxygen, the UV radiation
and the harsh vacuum of space.

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And then I went to work for NASA. And people ask me what I do and I say oh it's so challenging.

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Much of my job is failure analysis
when this material fails in

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orbit like the outside of the blanket.

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It's basically being a detective. Oh my
gosh how the heck are we gonna know what

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happened to this incredibly complicated
instrument on this incredibly

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complicated satellite, that's 250 miles
in space going 18,000 miles an hour that

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we're not gonna get to for two or three
years. But you slowly pick away at the

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problem, you got a lot of smart people
who are going systematically checking

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off the list what is credible and non
credible.

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I mean it's it's a puzzle, it's a riddle.

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I started focusing on science and math

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in middle school and in in high school. I
went to college and got a degree in

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chemistry. The thrill of being able to
you know, know have insight into what's

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really going on at the at the molecular
level. It's just really exciting for me.

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Not just accepting that it happens, but
digging into it,

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figuring out why.  My degree is in
chemistry and I do a lot with chemistry,

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with material science engineering, with
physics, but more important than all of

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those is English.

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So if you cannot communicate
your needs, your opinions,

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your engineering judgment, little else matters.

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Engineering, chemistry, they all share the common goal of making sense being able to draw general

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conclusions from a host of individual examples. So you can then use that information in the future.

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