With “one of the coolest jobs in the world,” NASA rover operator Vandi Verma hopes that a high profile among women in the latest Mars mission would inspire a new generation to pursue careers in the sector.
Verma’s colleague Swati Mohan made headlines around the world when she narrated the landing of the Perseverance rover on the Red Planet following its descent through the Martian atmosphere.
“It’s definitely inspired girls everywhere. It’s opened people’s perceptions of who can be a space engineer,” Verma told reporters ahead of International Women’s Day on Monday.
The space roboticist is operating the Perseverance — the most advanced astrobiology lab ever sent to another world — as it roams Mars looking for signs of microbial life.
“I really think I have one of the coolest jobs in the world,” said Verma, whose interest in space — like Mohan’s — was fueled by a childhood love of the TV series Star Trek.
“When Mars is visible in the sky, you look at that little dot and you think right now there’s a robot out there doing commands that I told it to do,” she said. “That’s pretty wild.”
Verma, who has been driving rovers on Mars since 2008, said that the latest mission would help answer questions “that change what we know about our place in the universe.”
Born in India, Verma studied electrical engineering at Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh before moving to the US, where she gaining a doctorate in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
When she joined NASA in 2004, female engineers often found themselves the only woman in the room, she said.
However, things are changing.
NASA, which aims to land the first woman on the moon by 2024, is on a mission to boost diversity.
Women made up 34 percent of the workforce in 2019, holding 18 percent of senior scientific posts, about treble the figure for 2009, the agency said.
Verma said that it was exciting to see an increasing number of applications from women, adding that diverse teams led to more “creative, out-of-the-box thinking.”
However, there is a long way to go to encourage more women into the STEM professions — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — she said.
British space engineer Vinita Marwaha Madill — founder of Rocket Women, which aims to inspire women to choose STEM careers — said that role models were vital.
“You can’t be what you can’t see,” she said, quoting astronaut Sally Ride, the first US woman in space.
“Seeing someone that looks like you allows you to believe that it’s possible to achieve your goals,” said Marwaha Madill, whose own passion took flight after watching Helen Sharman become the first British astronaut in space in 1991.
Madill, a project manager at a space exploration and robotics company in Ottawa, said that it was crucial to change stereotypes, as many girls move away from science as young as 11 years of age.
One way to get more girls into STEM subjects was to tap into their desire to change the world for the better, she said.
“There seems to be a disconnect between young women ... wanting to make a difference in the world, and knowing that they could make a really big positive impact through a career in science and engineering,” she said.
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