Vanessa E. Wyche is the director of the Johnson Space Center for NASA, home to America’s astronaut corps, mission control center, and the International Space Station. With more than 11,000 employees, she is responsible for human space flights and leads the way in exploring the moon and Mars with NASA’s Artemis spacecraft.
I was fortunate to speak with Vanessa about her vision for space and gender equality in STEM, following her keynote speech at the EMBS Women in Biomedical Engineering Forum in Orlando.
Robyn Foyster: Welcome, Vanessa. Now, you’ve just given a talk at the Women in Biomedical Engineering Forum in Orlando, with women only making up about 15% of all engineering professionals. How can organisations such as EMBS help provide support to women who want to pursue a career in STEM?
Vanessa E. Wyche: Robyn, thank you for asking that question. As an engineering student, it was important for me to have organisations like this where I could go and be with others who were endeavouring to get their degree. First of all, for encouragement, for inspiration to continue on my journey. And then, as a professional, it’s important for us to have organisations where we can go, encourage one another, learn, and be inspired to continue on in our journey. Because as you said, with there being only 15% of the entire workforce, it’s important for us to know that there are others who are already out there doing this, and for them to share, mentor, and help others move to the next level.
Robyn Foyster: How is mentoring important to you, and how have you benefited from your mentors?
Vanessa E. Wyche: My mentors have been critical to my career. I have been fortunate to have different types of mentors. I’ve had men, I’ve had women, I’ve had people in the U.S. and maybe even in other countries. They’ve been able to share what they’ve done, help me grow by helping me understand, maybe if I had questions about navigating my career path or questions about how I’m showing up at work. Having someone else come and give me advice, or agreeing to be the mentor to tell me, “Hey, if you maybe would just speak up a little bit more in meetings, this will help you to have more recognition.” So I have truly benefited from my mentors.
And then I also benefit from mentoring others. When I mentor other people, I actually learn new things from them, or it reminds me of things that I may have forgotten about, to hone certain skills. I’m a true believer in mentoring, and I think it’s important for each of us to either reach out to mentor someone or to connect so that we can be mentored.
Robyn Foyster: It’s important to have role models, and you are a fantastic role model to so many and encourage other women by what you do because, of course, you can’t be what you can’t see.
Vanessa E. Wyche: Absolutely. I agree with that. I was fortunate here at NASA Johnson Space Center. We’ve had two other female centre directors, and I remember the very first one, who used to be over our human health and performance. She has a degree in physical sciences. I saw her move from being a director of an organisation to being the director of the entire centre, and how she made sure that women were given opportunities. For me, I emulate that. I want to make sure that others have those same opportunities.
Robyn Foyster: Australia’s first female astronaut, Katherine Bennell- Pegg, is someone who I recently interviewed. She told me that when she was a young girl, she was always curious and looking up at the skies and dreamed of being an astronaut. Tell us about your early childhood, what you were like as a kid, and who inspired you as a young girl to believe in yourself.
Vanessa E. Wyche: So, Robyn, it’s ironic. I will tell you, I’m a true believer that curiosity is really what gets a lot of us interested, right? As a young child, I was always very curious. I was fortunate that my parents encouraged me to be curious. They encouraged me to ask all the questions and to pursue and do anything I wanted to do. I do believe that it was because my father, having four girls and one boy, wanted to make sure that his daughters could do all the things that my brother could do. We learned how to change the oil in the car; we did all of those things. I used to follow him around, helping him wire the house and do all those things. It was that which let me know I could do anything. My brother actually had an engineering degree. He also told me, “Vanessa you’re very analytical. I think you can do this.” So with that, why not? If he could do it, so could I.
Robyn Foyster: Growing up, I was also told that it’s important to believe that you can achieve anything you set out to do or be. Would you agree with that?
Vanessa E. Wyche: Oh, absolutely, yes. My parents, both being educators, believed anybody could do anything they wanted to do, first of all. They certainly believed that their own children could. They always said that to us. I’ll give you a quick story. When I was in maybe first or second grade, we had an art contest, and I drew a picture of the president and coloured the president in as being brown. The teacher was like, “No, this is not correct. The president can’t be brown.” I went home and told my parents, and they were like, “Well, we don’t know why your teacher would say that. Your drawing is your drawing. It’s your art, and people can be and do anything they want to do.” My parents were so super excited when Barack Obama became president of the United States.
Robyn Foyster: Likewise, we were so excited. It was a fantastic moment. Were you one of the few women in your class when you studied engineering?
Vanessa E. Wyche: I think I didn’t know that because I was more focused on learning and doing. I will be honest, I did not really notice it. Sometimes, when we would have class assignments, of course, you would notice it. But because I’ve always been the kind of person to focus on my goals and not necessarily on the environment, I think that’s the reason I was able to do that and just keep pursuing it.
Robyn Foyster: Yes, and also, you clearly didn’t have any limiting beliefs. Just take us back to the day that you actually got the job as the head of space. I mean, what a big moment that was for you.
Vanessa E. Wyche: So let me clarify, I am not the head of space, I am the head of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. We are the home of human spaceflight, but there’s so much more to space. When I got the job, the NASA administrator, who is the head of space, called to let me know that I was selected for the job. I was very excited because, having worked here for almost 30 years at that time, I knew a lot about everything because I worked in many different areas. I started as a project engineer, building medical devices, working my way up in the shuttle program to actually managing missions, and then leading an organisation that was planning the efforts for us to return to the moon. We are at a very, very critical time. The things that we’re doing today—having an international space station and having crew members on board, building towards that future of having many humans in low Earth orbit, and at the same time planning missions and going to the moon—now is such an incredible and exciting time. Yes, for me, it was just very, very exciting. I will tell you, yes, knowing that there’s a lot of responsibility, however, knowing that I’m up to the task and ready to support and continue.
Robyn Foyster: It’s a fascinating time to work in space. But you don’t have to be an astronaut to work in the space industry, do you?
Vanessa E. Wyche: Absolutely. There are so many careers—everything from biomedical specifically, but also different engineering degrees, science degrees in terms of the people working on the projects, operators, flight controllers, flight directors. We have to actually build things and launch them, which requires so many different fields, everything from accountants, lawyers, business professionals of every kind, and communication specialists. All of these careers are a part of what it takes. So I say to any woman, there is a place for you in space, and please join us.
Robyn Foyster: Can you elaborate on how the work in space is so important for life on Earth and why the work that you do is so important across the board?
Vanessa E. Wyche: So one of the things, especially from a bio standpoint, is a lot of the research that’s being done on the International Space Station today. We are doing research on cancer, on different types of illnesses, and the way that you’re able to grow cells without having gravity on them allows us to do pharmaceutical research. All of those things benefit us.
With the International Space Station. One of the big things for me, especially right now, is we’re dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane. We have sensors on board that allow us to not only study the climate and help with that but to specifically help when we’re in recovery situations. The technologies that we have that we’re using today here on Earth, a lot of people kind of take for granted that they’re there. GPS, for example, is something you use every day. You don’t think about how it came to be. But if we did not have the research that was done through space research, we would not have those advances.
Robyn Foyster: Just to wrap up, tell us about the Artemis mission and your big goal to reach Mars.
Vanessa E. Wyche: First, for the Artemis mission, of course, we know that we’re going to learn a lot. We’re going to learn how to live on another body before we go to Mars, but then also we’ll expand what we learn from research.
So then, at Mars, it especially is going to open up the doors for us to go into the solar system further and further out into the solar system. Those are the big, big, big goals that we’re trying to achieve.
Robyn Foyster: Vanessa, thank you very much for your time today. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
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