Translator: Mike Longley Reviewer: Denise RQ
I was born nine years after my parents thought they finished their family.
(Laughter)
I grew up believing that my life was my parents' mistake.
Though they did the best they could,
their struggle with poverty and mental illness
left them unable to meet my needs.
But I was an insatiably curious child,
and so I tried to figure out what I needed and get it all on my own.
Our first relationships set the template for those that come later.
My first family life taught me that relationships are difficult,
adults are unreliable, and it's far easier to rely only on myself
than to risk disappointment by relying on others;
that loving and trusting people, well, it's painful;
and that it's far easier to understand things
than it is to understand people.
So I fell in love with the night sky.
The constellations and the stories in them became my friends,
and they changed with a consistency and a dependability
that I didn't get at home.
I decided early on that my intellect was my ticket out,
and I worked hard in and out of school to follow my passion for astronomy.
One of my high school teachers knew I loved astronomy,
and she told me about an organization that sends students into the field
to work with professional scientists.
I won a scholarship to work at an observatory
and study with a professional astronomer,
an older woman who was kind and generous and married her profession.
She doted on me, and I saw myself as a scientist through her eyes.
That summer, she taught me how to use a telescope
to take photographs of stars that change in brightness
and to discover why they change the way they do.
The research I did with her support won me a top spot
in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search
and a scholarship to any university I wanted,
so I set off to an Ivy League college to study astrophysics.
I wasn't able to compete with classmates who were better prepared
and had more supportive people at home.
For the first time in my life, I was failing school,
and I was terrified about what that meant for my future.
I'd spent years honing my intellect alone,
and I thought my problem was mine alone to solve.
I left that university believing that I'd lost the ability to learn.
My self-confidence was shaken to the core.
My dream of being an astrophysicist was shattered.
I couldn't even take comfort in the starry skies I loved.
I learned about an internship at an aerospace company near my home.
I applied, and my past as a Westinghouse scholar got me that job.
There I met my first mentor, an engineer a few years older than me.
He showed me how to design my first object,
a test fixture for an airplane part.
Then he sent me to the shop to build it.
It was a disaster.
(Laughter)
I thought I'd failed at engineering, too, but he said to me, "No, that's --
"the failure is -- mistakes are just part of how engineers work:
"design, test, redesign."
So he supported me as I redesigned that part,
and he showed me how to rely on him, the other engineers in our design group,
and the experts in the shop, to add their knowledge and skills to mine.
I loved the collegiality of that design group.
I loved how they valued my contribution to the team.
I felt like I belonged, and I felt in control
as we designed that airplane and eventually watched it fly.
What I had been searching for throughout my childhood,
value, belonging, and control,
I found in the tried and true engineering design process.
I was hooked.
I switched my major to mechanical engineering
and decided to become a rocket scientist.
(Laughter)
My childhood prepared me well to be an engineer.
I was forced to solve grown-up problems long before any child should.
The upside is that I learned to use limited resources creatively.
The downside is that for a very long time,
I was solving problems in isolation,
urgently driven to make life work so I'd survive.
Engineering changed my life.
I found belonging and support
as alternatives to isolation and urgency.
Engineering changed my life.
What happens early lasts a lifetime.
Research into adverse childhood events
says that childhood challenges affect how we form relationships later,
and how we address challenges in our later life.
People who have endured
adverse childhood experiences
have learned to solve problems to survive.
That's their normal.
What they may not realize is that their problem-solving skills
translate well to engineering.
Engineers are given problems with a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity,
and not a lot of information and resources, and asked to solve them.
So yes, adverse childhood events are difficult and painful,
but out of that muck can come
immensely useful and adaptive skills.
So here's a secret no one tells you about engineering:
It's loaded with opportunities to give and receive empathy and support.
When you work on an engineering team,
relationships seem purposeful,
predictable, and safe.
Engineering's a team sport.
Think about it.
Anything that's not found in nature has been created by humans,
and the more complex an object is, the more likely it is
that it was designed by a team of people.
No one person can design very complex objects all by themselves.
And there are no lurkers on engineering teams.
We rely on each other to bring
our unique skills and personhood to the job.
And as we support each other in designing complex objects,
we create the emotions that make the process fun and satisfying.
As we support each other in designing objects,
we engineer who we are as people, too.
You see an example of the empathy,
and support, and teamwork
every time you watch a live feed of a NASA team
awaiting a key event in a mission.
Before the spacecraft lands, everybody's waiting with the same tension
of confidence, uncertainty, and hope.
If you look really closely, you can even see them breathe as if they're one.
They know they've done their collective best,
and when the spacecraft lands, engineers burst into cheers and celebrate.
Soon afterwards, though,
they're off camera and back to their normal jobs.
And what the public doesn't see
are the powerful and enduring feelings
of satisfaction, camaraderie, and joy
that come with making something that makes a difference.
And whether what we've created together is a better version of a toaster
or a one-of-a-kind spacecraft,
the act of creating something with others
reaches deep into our hearts and our minds.
We merge around our common goal,
and then we reemerge as individuals
made better by mutual understanding.
How have decisions you've made in your life reflected your childhood?
Those of us who had childhoods filled with unpredictability
tend to gravitate towards situations that give us control.
For some, the certainty of familiar misery, no matter how painful,
seems better than the misery of uncertainty,
and they repeat old patterns.
But engineering offers us a way, a systematic way,
to reduce ambiguity and uncertainty in a problem so we can solve it.
And it offers us practice in working with and trusting others
out in the world as we do that.
And that trust deepens and enriches our relationships.
So what happens when someone finds a deep sense of belonging?
I told you about the teacher, the scientist, and the engineers
whose influences helped me create a better future for myself.
I show my gratitude for their generosity
by paying their inspiration forward in the best way I know how:
by leading teams at Pacific Science Center and beyond
to work with and share with more people than I could ever reach alone.
I'm passionate about inspiring
lifelong learning in sciences, math, technology,
and I love working with diverse communities.
I'm especially interested in encouraging people to work in engineering.
Engineering is a problem-solving process, yes, but at its best,
engineering creates better relationships and better futures.
Through a wide variety of programs, I bring engineering into communities
where parents and children struggle to face life's challenges.
I see myself in so many of these children.
Pacific Science Center, together with the partners who add value to our teams,
help young people take better control of their futures.
Young people, like most or even all of us,
are on a journey to find a sense of value,
a sense of belonging, and a sense of control.
Whether it's to solve important problems
or create innovative and cool objects that are needed in the world,
or even just to find a place
where you can belong and make a difference,
I urge you to encourage boys and girls, young people in school and college,
and people open to a new job or a new career
to openly and creatively consider
how work in engineering, science, and technology,
whether on a trial basis or for a lifetime,
can be a key component
in the extraordinary, complex, well-structured, and meaningful journey
that is a life well-lived.
Thank you.
(Applause)