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Marshall Celebrates Black History Month: Together We Achieve

Marshall Celebrates Black History Month: Together We Achieve

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting the work and contributions of team members across the center. Whether supporting astronauts aboard the International Space Station, testing flight hardware, or developing and implementing the technologies of tomorrow, the values of unity, diversity, and inclusion are of great importance to the Marshall community. Each of the Marshall team members highlighted here fully embodies this year’s Marshall Black History Month celebration theme – “Representation, Identity and Diversity: Together We Achieve.”

Tawnya Laughinghouse

Title: Program manager, Technology Demonstration Missions

Hometown: Columbus, Ohio; and Huntsville, Alabama

Years with NASA: 17

My role at NASA: My role in TDM, the largest program under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, is to manage large and diverse tech demo projects led by NASA centers across the agency and industry partners. Our technology projects include solar electric propulsion, deep space optical communication, On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing and Entry, Descent and Landing technologies, to name a few. I am also responsible for managing an amazing team of folks here in the TDM Level 2 Program Office at Marshall. 

What my work means to me: We have a saying in the Space Technology Mission Directorate – “Technology drives exploration.” We look beyond the current state of the art to figure out what the future requires, what technologies will be needed, and how we can infuse and deliver those technologies not only for the mission needs of NASA, but also the needs of our government and commercial partners. So it gives me tremendous satisfaction knowing I have a hand in making sure we have the cutting edge in innovative technology that enables rewarding new space missions – missions that ultimately advance exploration and our understanding of the solar system in the universe around us.

The people who have influenced my life and career: My loving and supportive parents, E.J. Plummer Sr. and Linda, who put family first by moving back to Huntsville to raise their family in the Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) Seventh-day Adventist Church community, which shaped my faith and values. Mom and dad also showed by example their perseverance and tenacity through the highs and lows of life.  

Rosa Kilpatrick, a Spelman College alumna and retired Marshall government and community relations specialist, introduced me to the NASA Women In Science and Engineering scholarship program when I first met her while participating in the NASA Summer High School Apprenticeship Research Program. I was ultimately awarded the scholarship and went on to major in chemistry and chemical engineering at Spelman College and Georgia Tech, respectively.

Timothy W. Lawrence, Gail Gordon, and Frank Ledbetter hired and nurtured me in the Marshall Materials & Processes Laboratory. They saw my potential and set me on a path to pursue leadership development opportunities at the center and the agency.

Rosalind Brewer, a fellow Spelman chemistry graduate, former Starbucks chief operating officer, and as the newly announced Walgreens CEO, will be the only Black woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she takes the helm in March 2021.

Stacey Abrams, a Spelman College classmate of mine, for her extraordinary grassroots impact on the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

What the theme “Representation, Identity and Diversity: Together We Achieve” means to me: We live in a diverse nation, therefore our companies and our federal agencies ought to mirror that. In my career at NASA, I have observed that the best leaders cultivate a workforce with a range of experience levels, perspectives, capabilities, cultures, and backgrounds. Our differences and our strengths – along with a healthy dose of openness and trust – give us the freedom to engage in technical debates, welcome questions, be open to new ideas and solutions, and challenge the easy answers – all in the spirit of finding truth and making the best decisions. Whether you are a woman or a new hire or member of an underrepresented group – it shouldn’t matter. We must give everyone a voice, and it is my responsibility as a leader to foster that environment.

Ron Burwell

Title: Senior vibration test engineer

Hometown: Toney, Alabama

Years with NASA: 33

My role at NASA: I test and evaluate structural response issues of various spaceflight systems, subsystems, components, payloads, satellites, telescopes, etc., for NASA, other government entities, and industry. My team works with organizations across the board to test, document results, and aid in making decisions as to whether hardware will maintain structural integrity and is flight worthy according to NASA safety guidelines.

What my work means to me: My work gives me a great sense of accomplishment. After successful completion of every test and the subsequent analysis of test results, I feel that I’ve contributed to NASA’s overall mission and helped sustained the agency’s missions and values.

The people who have influenced my life and career: There are many people, starting with my parents who taught me the value of hard work and supported me at every level. Several instructors guided me towards a career in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, and of course spiritual leaders who helped me maintain a sense of value and integrity.

What the theme “Representation, Identity and Diversity: Together We Achieve” means to me: I’m very pleased to see this year’s theme. The addition of inclusion as one of NASA’s core values shows NASA’s commitment to not only be a leader in science technology, aeronautics, and space exploration, but also to do it with a diverse workforce. A diverse team provides diverse opinions, which only enhances the results for all. I feel that now young people of all backgrounds with the motivation, hard work, and lots of studying will never feel that a career at NASA is beyond their reach. NASA’s core values of safety, integrity, excellence, and teamwork, along with inclusion, can only enhance NASA’s pursuit for excellence in all that we undertake.

Emil Cherrington

Title: West Africa Regional Science Coordination lead, SERVIR

Hometown: Belize City, Belize

Years with NASA: 4 (12 years with SERVIR)

My role at NASA: I’m a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and via UAH’s cooperative agreement with NASA, I provide science support to and coordinate with the SERVIR-West Africa consortium, which consists of six organizations in that region. I also coordinate closely with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Africa regional mission. Within the SERVIR Science Coordination Office, I provide support for land cover monitoring – one of SERVIR’s four thematic areas. Where SERVIR is also a part of the Applied Sciences Capacity Building Program, my work involves a substantial amount of capacity building, including providing training.

What my work means to me: Those of us working for programs like SERVIR – which is a unique partnership between NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development  – do so because we have seen the program’s impacts. SERVIR seeks to strengthen the capacity of users in its focus regions to apply Earth observation data from NASA and other agencies. Like a handful of my colleagues at the SERVIR Science Coordination Office, and what seems like a lifetime ago, I used to be one of the users SERVIR was targeting. That’s a perspective I’m thankful to have, because I remember what it was like to be on the other side of the table.

In SERVIR, which has been in operation for over 16 years now, we do what we do in part from the satisfaction that we are contributing to strengthening countries’ use of Earth observation data for the sustainable use of their resources. It’s ultimately also a part of NASA’s contribution, via the U.S. Group on Earth Observations, to the Group on Earth Observations’ work developing a Global Earth Observation System of Systems. We are ultimately helping to build a future where Earth observation data are better integrated into decision-making.

The people who have influenced my life and career: Honestly, there are too many people to name, stretching from my elementary school teachers to my advisors in grad school. However, SERVIR’s founder and Global Program Manager, Dan Irwin; former SERVIR International Programs Manager Gwen Artis; SERVIR Chief Scientist Ashutosh Limaye; and my UAH supervisor, Robert Griffin; have been important professional mentors. I am also thankful for my colleagues at the SERVIR Science Coordination Office, whose camaraderie I appreciate, and from whom I’ve also learned a great deal.

My family has also been an immense and supportive influence, from my parents to my wife, Betzy, to my grandparents, aunts, and uncles. My Aunt Carolyn gave me a computer as a gift when I was 14, which likely paved the way for my eventually entering the remote sensing field.

What the theme “Representation, Identity and Diversity: Together We Achieve” means to me: On a professional level, the SERVIR program for which I work has certainly recognized and celebrated the diversity of the regions in which we work. The people working for the overall SERVIR program hail from every inhabited continent, from different ethnic groups, languages, and faiths. The program has accomplished a great deal in its 16 years precisely because it has capitalized on such diverse perspectives.

If I reflect on “Together We Achieve,” as SERVIR is a partnership, I think about how it’s definitely an example that we are “better together.” SERVIR combines the strengths of a space agency with the strengths of a development agency – as well as the strengths of various centers of excellence from across the world. On a personal level, while “Representation, Identity, and Diversity” is the theme for Marshall’s Black History Month observance, I see the theme as transcending color or ethnicity, as it could be the theme for any month in that it is emblematic of America’s strength in being a melting pot of people from multiple cultures and origins. Isn’t that what “E pluribus unum” represents, after all?

Dwight Mosby

Title: Payload Mission Operations Division manager, International Space Station

Hometown: North Versailles, Pennsylvania

Years with NASA: 2

My role at NASA: I am a direct report to the Human Exploration Development & Operations Office at Marshall, and also report to the International Space Station Program manager at Johnson Space Center in Houston. I am responsible for cost, schedule, risk, and technical implementation of flight and ground operations activities in support of science missions.

What my work means to me: What makes my work meaningful is developing the next generation of space leaders supporting science and utilization and to delivering on our commitments to focus on crew safety, vehicle safety, and mission success.

The people who have influenced my life and career: Nathaniel Boclair III, who managed the Space Systems Operations branch at Marshall, was the most influential to my career. Personally, my mom, Janis Brooks. She raised two kids as a single parent while working on her Ph.D., which was not easy.

What the theme “Representation, Identity and Diversity: Together We Achieve” means to me: For flight control and ground operations, team building is essential to our success. It takes many people working together to support our principle investigators located all over the world. Our teams have to be diverse because diversity in individuals brings diversity in thought. Spaceflight is very dynamic and there are new challenges – sometimes daily. We overcome those challenges because we enable people with different perspectives to come together and figure out new solutions to new problems.