“I think [studying history] felt a little bit like a treasure hunt.
“I was going into archives, doing original research, and reading the actual documents that diplomats and politicians had written and seeing the outcomes. I felt like I was uncovering something that no one had seen before. And I think that element of the treasure hunt is what made it really exciting, as well as the opportunity to create a new narrative. When you do original research, you’re trying to find a new perspective on an old question.
“And I really loved being able to connect dots that weren’t obvious and tell stories in a different way.
“A lot of what I’ve done throughout my career and what I do now as a leader is looking at problems and figuring out different ways to approach them. And as a leader, a lot of what we do is storytelling.
“So, the skills that I learned as a historian — asking difficult questions, looking for answers that aren’t immediately obvious, framing issues in a way that kind of gets you to where you want to go — absolutely shaped how I approach the work that I’ve done over the years.”
— Rebekah Reed, Associate Director, Exploration Integration and Science, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Image Credit: NASA / Norah Moran
Interviewer: NASA / Thalia Patrinos