“When I started in the aerospace industry, I was shocked by how outnumbered I was. At my first job, I was the only woman in a group of 35 people. I was the youngest by 15 years. And I was like ‘wow, okay. This is surprising.’
“As I got older and had more professional experiences, I started working with American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. I was the first young professional liaison to their board of directors… so I was always trying to do things to encourage young professionals to get more involved. Over time, I started to do more and more work with university students, and then high school students.
“That’s the fun part of outreach — I not only get to inspire kids, I also inspire myself. It reminds me to pick my head up at that 35,000 foot-level and say, ‘you know what? This is pretty cool.’
“I’m selfish. I want to see more women go into engineering. I think there’s a lot of data on how more diversity on an engineering team makes a better product. Companies that have more diversity in their leadership have better profits. I want to see more women in the workforce. I want to see more women in technical fields. I want to see more women in technical leadership.”
— Nicole Smith, Chief of Exploration Systems Office, Glenn Research Center
Image Credit: NASA / Bridget Caswell
Interviewer: NASA / Thalia Patrinos