Public Engagement

For two decades, I’ve been on a mission to help people see themselves as part of something much bigger than themselves. To remind them that “the world” is not just what you see around you – the true world is the entire universe around us. Helping others feel more connected to a sense of something profound is my personal cause.

A big part of that work has been serving as the public engagement lead for several NASA programs, including the Europa Clipper and Juno missions, as well as the Radioisotope Power Systems Program. The person in this role is the main point of contact for all public communications that are not news, and generally works embedded with the mission teams. I produced scale models, web content and videos, public events, printed items, and more. It’s remarkable to sit among the scientists and engineers as a peer, with your own role to carry out on behalf of a NASA mission.

Since 2018 I’ve worked in a cross-collaborative capacity – the Swiss Army Knife of our team – on a wide variety of engagement initiatives, from websites to exhibits to messages that connect and inspire.

Here are a few such projects I’ve helped lead over the years.

Europa Clipper Vault Plate

It was a career highlight to lead the development of an inspirational message plaque launched to space aboard NASA's flagship mission to Europa. I originated the concept for a poem from the U.S. Poet Laureate to which millions of people could sign their names. And together with a team of scientists and creatives, we developed a design consisting of audio recordings of the word for “water” in over 100 languages – fitting for this mission from one ocean world to another.

Entrusted with the project by the mission’s public engagement team, I was asked to coordinate development of the plate design, and oversaw laser engraving of the flight hardware. Finally, I produced engaging content to announce the project to the public, including a video that was premiered at the opening of SXSW 2024.

Pale Blue Dot Revisited

This one was personal for me, because the image itself, and Carl Sagan’s book, “Pale Blue Dot,” played a pivotal role in the direction of my career. I led the effort to publish a new version of the iconic image of Earth, seen from beyond the orbit of Neptune in 1990 by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, using modern image processing technology. I worked with co-producer Phil Davis and image processing wiz Kevin Gill to get this new image out into the world for its 30th anniversary, in consultation with the original image planners from the mission.

Hi Juno

Working with JPL's Dan Goods, we coordinated a mass transmission by ham radio operators to the Juno spacecraft, as it passed Earth en route to Jupiter. And it heard us! The impact of this activity was lessened due to a government shutdown that occurred during Juno’s Earth flyby, but this is still one of the coolest projects I’ve worked on, and I’m proud of it.

NASA Science Website

For nearly two years, I served on the team that worked to redevelop the NASA website, in a congressionally mandated project referred to as web modernization. The objective was to consolidate NASA’s web footprint, getting rid of old, outdated content and make it easier for the public to find what they were looking for. The project was bifurcated, with nasa.gov and science.nasa.gov being developed in parallel by separate, coordinated teams. It was a MASSIVE task. My role was to lead the content audit for all of NASA’s science content, and I helped develop the phased rollout strategy the dev team employed to get the NASA Science site built with the schedule and resources available.

50th Anniversary of Radioisotope Power

The use of radioactive decay heat to power spacecraft missions across the solar system has been a critical element in our ability to extend humanity’s reach to the planets and beyond. While I served as outreach lead for the radioisotope power program, we developed our “Power to Explore” message and branding, which fed into a celebration of 50 years of NASA and the Department of Energy partnering to make this exploration possible. We produced videos, printed items, public events, and even a special gala at the Smithsonian at which we revealed an original painting by space artist Pat Rawlings (seen here).