(bright percussive music)
- An engineer in our society, they don't look like me,
but I'm here to break that mold.
(bright percussive music)
My name is Dajae “Moe” Williams,
and it's kind of hard to explain, but I ...
- [Gillian Jacobs] Don't worry, Dajae.
Dajae is a manufacturing engineer
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, and she's also a musician.
- Well said.
I literally couldn't have said it better myself.
- [Gillian Jacobs] Thank you, Dajae.
Lets get back to where it all started.
Dajae's love of science all began
when she was growing up in St. Louis.
- I grew up on the south side of St. Louis, Missouri,
in a single-parent household with my mom.
I got into science because of a program
that my mom kicked down doors to get me into.
They exposed us to different science topics,
such as robotics, chemistry, you name it.
- [Gillian Jacobs] In college,
Dajae studied engineering management.
While there, she faced more
than just challenging schoolwork.
- A lot of times, in class, I was the only female.
I was the only Black female.
Sometimes people didn't wanna sit by you.
Sometimes people didn't wanna help you.
You know, I would see a lot of times
that people would have their, I'm trying not to cry.
People would have their little groups that they would
study with, and I would have to, like, infiltrate.
Like, how can I bond with that group so that I can
get the same resources that my people don't have?
But I figured it out.
- [Gillian Jacobs] Of course she figured it out.
Which brings us to NASA.
Dajae is part of a team building rocket ships.
They take an engineer's idea and figure out
how to make it a reality, which is pretty freakin' cool.
Now, remember a minute ago when we mentioned
that Dajae was also a musician?
She wrote a song about science
to the tune of Soulja Boy's “Crank That.”
- I was just writing it out, like, “Yo, this is hot!”
♪ X equals in this oh ♪
♪ Negative b, less or more ♪
♪ The square root of b squared minus four ac fo' sho' ♪
♪ Now find the root over two a ♪
♪ Root over two a ♪
♪ Ey ♪
- [Gillian Jacobs] Dajae realized that through music,
you could open up a whole new audience's eyes
to the world of science, something she wished
she had when she was young.
- It's not just writing a song, and that's it.
Like, I actually take it a step further and am a mentor
to a lot of students who either are interested in science
or are already in college and just need
that extra push to continue and finish.
I wanna show through my life that
you can be an engineer, you can be a musician.
Yo, the sky is the limit.
(bright percussive music)
(vibrato high-pitched note)