(gentle music)
- So when I was a sophomore, I was a chemist.
I'd always been fascinated by space
but it actually never occurred to me
that I could have a job working in the Space Program.
But I saw a flyer for a summer internship at NASA,
a place called the Lunar Planetary Institute in Houston,
and I went and I cold-called Professor Sue Wyckoff
who was a professor of astronomy.
She picked up the phone
and helped me get this summer internship at NASA
which really changed my life.
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- I'm of course, incredibly proud of the fact
that Laurie is a distinguished alum of ASU,
but she was also a professor here at ASU
from about 1998 through 2005,
and she was just hugely influential in my own decision
to come to ASU.
- She's a leader.
She's a leader that inspires other people
to do their very best.
- And she was one of the key drivers, in fact,
key drivers and key supporters of the creation
of the School of Earth and Space Exploration.
- She's a powerful thinker, powerful creator.
She was here at the beginning
of the New American University idea.
She helped us launch one of the most important schools
that we have, our School for Earth and Space Exploration.
She is an intellectual leader, national leader and pay.
She's the head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
which is exploring the solar system.
So it's really fantastic.
- ASU through CC is one of our great partners at JPL.
We're thrilled to have so many scientists from CC involved
in our missions, we're thrilled to have
so many students from ASU coming to the lab
and becoming a part of our team.
- Space is hard, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
is at the cutting edge of the hardest part of space.
But Laurie Leshin doesn't shy away from that.
She's data driven.
She's a great inquisitor
but she also leads in a textbook fashion
of how do you get the very best out of your people?
She isn't just someone capable of rocket science.
The rocket scientists report to her.
- [Speaker] So she is been breaking glass ceilings
for a while now.
- So I'm very aware in all of my firsts kind of roles
at whether that be president
of WPI or as director of JPL, of the shoulders I stand on.
That's my mom and her leadership,
but that's also the women that came before me.
- Laurie is the picture of Arizona State University.
She's brilliant, she's capable, she is dedicated,
she works really hard, but she also has fun.
- So our mission at JPL is amazing.
We get to explore the frontiers of space.
So my job as a leader is to really enable everyone
to contribute to that mission
and to make that mission really clear to everyone,
to help people see their place within it
and then to try to knock down barriers
to people being successful in doing their jobs.
- [Speaker] ASU and JPL
have had a long-standing relationship
on a variety of projects on spacecraft missions
and I'm sure that that's only gonna get stronger
with Laurie at the helm at JPL.
- So at JPL we say "Do mighty things together."
Everything we are doing is team-based
and we're trying to do things
that have never been done before.
- Laurie Leshin is a leader.
She's an inspiration.
She inspires people young
and old to take seriously the tough topics
like science and space.
She causes people to find the discovery in science.
- So learning is such a big part of what we do at JPL,
and for me that really connects our work
to great universities
like ASU because that's where we all learn to learn.
I know I did at ASU, that's where I learned to learn.
- So anyone who knows Laurie
knows that she is a force of nature.
So I'm just super excited to see what's ahead for her
and what's ahead for JPL.
- It's an exciting time to be alive,
and Laurie Leshin is on the cutting edge
of some of the most exciting discoveries
that humans are making right now.
- I'm incredibly grateful for everything that ASU has done
for me from the age of nine through being a faculty member
and continuing partnership today
and especially grateful for this honor.
So thank you Sun Devils.
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