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NASA Reaches Out to Minorities

By Ji Hyun Lim

NASA computer scientist Jerry Yan explains the capacity of supercomputers while standing in a room filled with them. Photo by Ji Hyun Lim.

Awestruck at age 12, Jerry Yan recalls watching astronaut Neil Armstrong land on the moon. Eighteen years later, his dream of working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — the only American agency that launches into outerspace — came to life. He is now a senior computer scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center.

For those like Yan, who have dreamt of working with space technology, NASA has made strides to be more inclusive. Its main headquarters in Washington, D.C., initiated an outreach program to Asian Americans as part of APA Heritage Month. On May 16, Bay Area reporters toured the Ames research site in Los Altos, Calif., to learn about the program, as well as current research and cutting edge technology.

“If we want people to further support NASA, we need to educate them about our programs and missions,” Victoria Kushnir, media relations specialist at NASA, said.

The Ames facility is huge. The 2,000-acre site employs 3,500 people. Two-hundred-thirty-three — or nearly 16 percent — of the 1,500 civil servant employees are of Asian descent. There are also 78 African Americans, 113 Latinos and 20 Native Americans, the Equal Opportunity Office reports.

Located on Moffett Field, Ames is the second of NASA’s 10 field centers. It was founded in 1939 as an aeronautics research laboratory and named by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) in honor of the committee’s chairperson, Joseph S. Ames. It is also situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, next to Stanford University, a cluster of computer companies, and some private research laboratories. The facility has $3 billion in capital equipment and a $650-plus million annual budget.

With its size and the resources available, Ames’s objective is to develop cutting-edge aerospace technologies and to conduct research in earth, life and space sciences. Researchers are developing information systems and high technology, which benefit both space missions and humankind more generally.

NASA promotes student outreach, internships and mentorship programs for those interested in science and technology. But Dochan Kwak, branch chief of NASA Advanced Super-Computing (NAS), said Asian Americans tend to overlook such opportunities.

“My observation is that first-generation [Asian Americans] came here and experienced a lot of hardship,” Kwak said. “The second-generation Asian Americans tend to choose medical and legal professions because these fields offer a very stable career, and the financial reward is also good … Aerospace, information technology and biosciences are not high-paying professions.”

But, he added: “If you like the research environment, it’s a great place to explore possibilities. This is the one of the best places where you don’t see the line between Asians or other national origins.”

Two of the API scientists, Yan and Robert Mah, would probably agree.

Yan, 41, has worked at NASA since 1988. After graduating from London University and Stanford University in electrical engineering, he became interested in NASA’s high-performance computing — or supercomputing — technology that stores information hundreds of thousands of times faster than a personal computer.

“[We need] information technology that is faster, cheaper, better and safer,” he said.

NASA engineer Robert Mah describes smart sensor probes in the lab.

Mah has worked at NASA since 1973 as a biomedical engineer. He has conducted research on smart sensor probes for neuro-surgery and breast cancer detection. The probes are surgical tubes that have sensors on the tip of the instrument. Physicians can detect and interpret tissue properties from the signals sent to the smart sensor software. Originally, he had created these models as medical tools for long-duration space missions, but found these instruments would be practical as surgical instruments.

“It’s really easy to justify that you need to provide better tools for medical emergencies,” Mah said. “That’s the best way to develop something for use in the realistic environment.”

NASA does not produce or market innovations like Mah’s. Rather, the Commercial Tech office partners with start-up companies, which license, produce and distribute the inventions.

One advantage of working for a government research facility, Yan said, is that projects are not pursued based on “financial pressure to produce products” for profit.

“In a government agency, we have more freedom to produce things that are of importance,” he said. “To me, that’s very rewarding: to do something that will benefit people.”

He added: “I never would have imagined working for the space agency that put a man on the moon. We hope to go to Mars in the future. If one works hard and circumstances work out, a lot of your aspirations can become reality. If the opportunity is there, you need to be ready for it.”