Communicating to the World
I am the Webmaster for NASA's Ames Research Center. I am responsible for the oversight of more than 100 webmasters and more than 1,000 websites. The most enjoyable aspect of my job is interacting with our customers, and creating new websites to communicate to the outside world what we do here at NASA.
In addition, I manage the Ames web services group, which provides web-releated services to our program and project managers. One of our most highly visited sites is the Ames homepage.
Career Journey
I have an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, and a masters in computer science. While there is no math or science required for my day to day activities, my background is helpful in terms of understanding the technological issues.
In school, I enjoyed my courses in film, creative writing and computer science. I was never directed away from taking math and science classes in favor of liberal arts classes like English, history, teaching or art. In fact, I think my background is a little too focused on the sciences for my current tastes and interests and for the direction that the world and NASA should be moving in today. I believe we all need a more balanced education with 50% liberal arts and 50% hard sciences.
Surprisingly, most of Ames' upper management is male, and this sends the wrong message, setting a corporate image and tone that may undervalue diversity, creativity and intuition. I found my current position by forming a mentoring relationship with a senior manager in the Directorate Office. Unfortunately, there are few role models for women at this level.
Advice
From my experience, "words of wisdom" that I can give to a 11- to 14-year-old regarding life are: Follow your bliss, try new things, don't give up when life gets rough and stay away from drugs and alcohol. Here is a quote from Newt Gingrich, of all people, from Wired magazine (Aug. 95) that I would like to share about life today:
"We have to do nine things in parallel, which is complicated. We have to renew American civilization at a core-values level. We have to do everything we think we are doing to compete in a world market so we're economically sufficient. We have to make the transition to the information age. We have to replace welfare with a very different set of values and structures. We have to decentralize power out of Washington, and ideally out of government to some extent. Everything we do at the federal level ought to be the best in the world, or we shouldn't be doing it. We need to balance the budget for fiscal long-term reasons that are very real in terms of baby boomers' retirement, in terms of our kids' lives. We need to reestablish physical safety against drugs, violent crime, and foreign attacks. And finally, we have to lead the planet. We're the only country capable of leading the human race. And we've got to do all nine of those simultaneously. Life's complicated."
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