I actually didn't know what an engineer really was until I was about 13 years old.
I had always been interested in space, planets, you know, our solar system
and stars, and I was also interested in design. So then I watched the movie
Apollo 13 and I learned what aerospace engineering was, and how that was a
beautiful marriage of my love of space and my love of design, and then I had
something to shoot for. And I fell in love with NASA.
Conversations with Goddard Featuring: Jody Davis
I'm the deputy payload systems engineer on WFIRST, at Goddard. So, my
education background, I went to Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University and I got
my bachelor's in aerospace engineering. Then I went on to grad school at UVA and
got a master's in aerospace and mechanical engineering. Before all of
that I fell in love with flying. I was in high school right about the time that I
was learning to drive. I started flying. Before school I
would go fly, get my hours in, and then after school I would work at a hair
salon to actually pay for my flying lessons, and I ended up getting my
pilot's license by senior year of high school.
I like to do STEM outreach a lot,
and at one point I was like, "You know what? I really would love to do
international STEM outreach." I found a nonprofit organization in
Tanzania called Project Inspire, and I went out and I talked about NASA with
them for two and a half weeks. I plan to go back about every other year.
I like challenges, and I came up with this idea once I started running marathons, and I
want to run a marathon on every continent before I'm 50. The last one I
ran was in Iceland, and then the next one that I have planned is to run the Mount
Fuji marathon in Japan. Yes, I did climb Kilimanjaro I still can't believe it.
It's a 19,300 foot peak, it was the hardest thing I've ever done.
And getting to the top, you're kind of almost euphoric. What I enjoy most
about working at Goddard, is the people. To tie it all together we have a very
capable, hard-working team, and I crave that highly collaborative environment,
where even as issues crop up you know that you can pull your team together and
find the right answer. My six-word memoir is she inspired and uplifted the world.
[Music]
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