Karen St. Germain: From B+ Student to Leader at NASA
How does one go from being a B+ student who got dressed down by her 8th grade softball coach to the Division Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA? While this might sound like the plot of an inspirational Hallmark movie, this was real life for Karen St. Germain. For our inaugural episode, we talked with her about mentorship, the value of being able to communicate science, and how perseverance can pay off. This episode was produced by Shane M Hanlon and mixed by Collin Warren. Transcript Shane M Hanlon: Hi everyone, I'm Shane M Hanlon, the host of the Sci & Tell. Just a note before we get rolling - Each episode is gonna start w/ a quick story from me that somehow relates to something our interviewee said. Sometimes it may seem out of context…but there's definitely a thread there. So w/out further ado, let's get into it. Shane M Hanlon: I used to jokingly call myself the Abe Lincoln of fellowships. Something that always stuck with me about Lincoln was how many times he ran for elected office…and how many times he lost before finally succeeding. I could definitely relate to that. I applied to about a 1/2 dozen grad schools and only got into one (and frankly, it wasn't my first choice). As a grad student I applied for dozens of grants and fellowships and came away with a handful of small awards. I was waitlisted for the post-phd fellowship that ultimately brought me to Washington, DC. I think (or at least hope) that my current job is the first time that I wasn't the second choice. But instead of being resentful, I've tried to learn from these situations. And at the end of the day - who cares how I got here. I'm being judged on where I'm going, not where I've been. Shane M Hanlon: Everyone has a story, even, or maybe especially, scientists. Science affects each and every one of us. Let's talk about it. From the American Geophysical Union, I'm Shane M Hanlon, and this is Sci & Tell. Shane M Hanlon: I am so excited for this. A couple years ago I had this idea to take audio from interviews we were doing with NASA scientists here at AGU and turn them into a podcast, mainly because I just didn't like the idea of unused audio. But during that pilot series where I piggy-backed on our other podcast, Third Pod from the Sun, I realized the folks were talking to were great examples of different folks from different backgrounds in different parts of the sciences. They weren't perpetuating stereotypes of who scientists are and what they look like. They were showing that anyone can be a scientist and that there is no one-size-fits-all formula when thinking about who's in the sciences. Shane M Hanlon: Well, now we're back for our first official, I guess season. We're going to bring y'all 12 interviews with scientists, mostly from NASA who is the sponsor for this season, who talk about their career path, successes and failures, inspirations, and more. Shane M Hanlon: For our first episode we talked with Karen St. Germain, Division Director of the Earth Science Division, in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. That is a long title the basically means Karen does some cool and impressive stuff. So enough from me, let's hear from Karen. Our interviewer was Paul Molin. Karen St. Germain: My name is Karen St. Germain, and I am the director of Earth Science for NASA. That means I lead the team of scientists, engineers and programs to use the unique vantage point of space to study our home planet and understand how the processes on Earth work. Karen St.
