The Science of Mentorship

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Science of Mentorship. Institutions are often challenged in developing a culture that supports and values effective mentoring. A culture of mentorship is needed however to create lasting improvements in mentoring ecosystems. Astronaut and engineer, Dr. Ellen Ochoa found a culture of mentorship that guided her to a place where a few humans have gone, outer space.
After earning her PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Dr. Ochoa joined the NASA Space Shuttle Program, a program in which he became the first Hispanic woman to travel into space. Many people guided Dr. Ochoa, along the way. Without their support, researching in space would have been unachievable. These experiences made Dr. Ochoa realize that for human space flight to progress, everyone needs access to effective mentoring. Dr. Ellen Ochoa is a distinguished astronaut and research engineer. She has flown to space four times and serve as a director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston from 2013 until her retirement in 2018. She has been inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame, the California Hall of Fame, and the International Air and Space Hall of Fame. She is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Ellen Ochoa started her undergraduate career at San Diego State University. She didn't know which major to pursue. She asked for help. And at first, didn't get the response she was looking for.

Ellen Ochoa (01:49):
I went and talked to different professors, one in the Electrical Engineering Department and one in the Physics Department. And the electrical engineering professor, I'm sad to say was clearly not at all interested in having me in his department. He just told me, "Well, we did have a woman come through here once, but it's a difficult course to study and I really don't know if you'd be interested." which was kind of ironic given that I had actually set up this meeting to talk to him about it. But fortunately, I got a very different response from the Physics professor. First of all, he said, "Well, I'm really glad to hear that you're interested in physics." And then he told me a little bit more about the subject. He told me about different kinds of jobs or careers that people could have when they studied physics, which was incredibly important. So I decided to try it out the next semester and long story short, ended up selecting Physics as my major and I ended up minoring in Math as well.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
With the support of the physics professor, Ellen found the right path to accomplish her academic goals. She graduated from San Diego State and went on to pursue her PhD at Stanford.

Ellen Ochoa (03:02):
Stanford because of the field that I was interested in, optical information processing. I actually was in the Electrical Engineering Department because that is where the professor who I wanted to work for was, who was very well-known in fourier optics. And I had specifically talked to him before deciding where to go to graduate school, so I was particularly interested in working for him. And I think that was extremely helpful to know that ahead of time and to have made that connection because really, I think your experience as a graduate student depends incredibly strongly on your advisor.
First of all, do you have sort of the same view of what you want to do and is your advisor somebody who wants to see you in their group and will encourage you? And I just got really lucky that my PhD advisor welcomed me from the very beginning. I also had an associate advisor who was more on the experimental side, because my primary advisor was more of a theorist. And both of them just never seem to question from the beginning that I should be there and that what I was doing was absolutely

legitimate. And of course over the years, even while I was at Stanford, but certainly over the years, I've talked to so many other people who had very negative experiences with advisors who really didn't see them as part of that group.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Advisors aren't always mentors, but Ellen's advisors took on mentoring roles to guide Ellen further into her career. A major historical event then happened and it made Ellen discover a new opportunity.

Ellen Ochoa (04:49):
When I was at Stanford in the very first year, near the end of my first year there is when the space shuttle flew for the first time. And that was a very big deal, very different kind of spacecraft than had ever flown. And of course, the way it was developed, one of the main things it was able to support was a wide variety of research in space, doing things you could not do on earth. And a couple of years later, Sally Ride flew. Another huge deal, first American woman astronaut.
And so this one now all of a sudden a career that was open. I also saw that I had things in common with Sally. We'd both been Physics majors. She had graduated from Stanford. I was at that point at Stanford in the middle of getting my PhD. And I really think I needed to see those kinds of connections for it to actually form this idea in my brain. "Well, maybe this is something I could do." I was interested in research. Of course, who could not be interested in the out of whole idea of human space exploration? I mean, it's just so exciting in a lot of different ways.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Sally Ride's historic flight opened the door for Dr. Ochoa. Inspired by her role model. Dr. Ochoa had a new dream. She had never considered before. She decided to apply for NASA Space Shuttle Program, but she confronted obstacles during the process.

Ellen Ochoa (06:18):
Eventually, I remember talking to my associate advisor about it and he was very encouraging it. "You should go for it." I almost talked myself out of even sending in my application to NASA because I just thought there's so many people who apply and how are they ever going to pick my name out of the thousands that they get. But of course, my advisor, my friend said, "You have nothing to lose by sending it in you. You absolutely should go ahead and do that."

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Dr. Ochoa's community encouraged her to remember that she was competent in electrical engineering. And NASA was quick to recognize her competence as well. She was accepted into the Space program and quickly found herself in a new unique community.

Ellen Ochoa (07:11):
One of the things I loved from the moment I was selected as an astronaut was, "Yeah, I was now part of a team." And my first team was the class that I was selected in, which was 22 other people. And we really spent the first year together, training together in a whole variety of different ways. And then of course, as you get to know other people in the astronaut office, in some ways they all become members of your team and you get to know them in different ways because either of the jobs that you're assigned, or of course, when you are assigned to a crew, you get to know those people really, really well.

We learned from each other. And the goal was we need to have successful missions and what is it that we can do to help make sure that our missions are successful.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Dr. Ochoa knew that inclusivity was key to learning together and learning together as a team was key to the success of the mission.

Ellen Ochoa (08:06):
People see that they're contributing to a mission that's bigger than themselves, that benefits people. And we really try, and I'm thinking in my leadership roles now to make sure that people understand that they are working toward that mission directly, even if their role isn't directly in operations. Whatever they're doing there helps make the mission happen.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
She learned from her peers who had already traveled the path before her.

Ellen Ochoa (08:40):
Certainly learned from other astronauts. For one thing, of course, the Shuttle program had been going for several years when I joined in 1990. And so, you are learning from the people who have already been in space on the shuttle. When I got assigned to my first crew, there were three members that crew had already been in space once and then two of us who were new, who were rookies. And absolutely we asked all kinds of questions of the people who had already been in space. And of course they offered up things to be thinking about and things that you would only really know if you had been in the space environment.
Throughout my astronaut career, whenever I got on a new crew and maybe was assigned to a job that I hadn't done before, I would go to people who had done that job, like the flight engineer job and get tips. And everybody was always really helpful about passing those on.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
As Dr. Ochoa progressed through NASA, she continued looking for ways to improve mentoring. She decided to develop a program that would make this vision a reality.

Ellen Ochoa (09:55):
So I think this happened when I was the deputy center director at Johnson Space Center. We started up a formal mentoring program. And so, of course its goals was to develop people, but really to also consciously pass on knowledge, insight, and experience. And in any endeavor, but I would say, especially human space flight, you worry about people retiring or leaving, and then you've lost some knowledge or a certain experience. So, really having a program where you're specifically focused on that was important and I think encouraged communication and innovation.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
The program went beyond just setting up mentoring relationships. It provided clear instructions and resources to help mentors and mentees.

Ellen Ochoa (10:44):

One of the things I liked about this program, and this was really the first time I'd ever been involved in a formal mentoring program, either as a mentor or as a mentee, but they did provide us tools that I found really helpful. And the first thing we had was I would call it a mentoring compact. So it was just an agreement between the mentor and the mentee. "Okay. How long is this relationship going to last?" And through this program, we actually set it up in general to last a year, but of course you could sign up in future years, so you could have multiple mentoring experiences, but each one individually would last a year. And then, the two people would talk about, "How often are we going to meet? Where are we going to meet? Is it okay for the mentor to talk to the mentees' supervisor or would you prefer that not happen?" Just sort of setting up those structures so that there's a mutual understanding.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
The program also encouraged the mentees to be transparent and ask for exactly what they need.

Ellen Ochoa (11:43):
And then, it went beyond that to really have a plan where the mentee would start out by listing, "Hey, what are the three items that you think your mentor can most help with that you are most interested in working with?" There were ideas for how mentors can help in addition to just talking, maybe introduce them to other people at the center, or even other people at other centers at NASA who might be able to address a particular topic that they were interested in, whether it was technical or more personal. And I found all of that really helpful. I felt it helped me become a better mentor.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
While Dr. Ochoa worked on her mentoring skills, she found that people needed help in finding the right person to support them.

Ellen Ochoa (12:28):
We also sponsored some speed mentoring programs where we'd get some of the more senior people in the room and some of the younger people who wanted to participate and you'd have literally 15 minutes with four different people or in an afternoon. And of course, sometimes that led to them forming longer relationships, but it just gave me a way to meet different people and understand what their experiences were and how that might help you out. So it was always... We're not putting necessarily all our eggs in one basket, but we want to, in every way that we can help develop people and help pass on experience and insight.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Dr. Ochoa worked hard for people to have positive mentoring experiences at NASA, but as she looks back at her academic career, she recognizes the times that she didn't always look for support.

Ellen Ochoa (13:21):
So I never had a formal mentor. And in fact, I didn't even think about it. I was not probably aware enough of how helpful that could be to me. So I never went up to anybody and said, "I really like you to mentor me" or, "Here are some of the questions that I have." So in general, the people that guided me were people that I worked with, my PhD advisors, and then my supervisors. So thinking back, I certainly think I could've talked to more people about STEM careers for example. Really, the only people that I talked to were my two PhD advisors. And I didn't necessarily think about, "Well, could you help me set

up conversations with people in a variety of STEM fields?" whether it's academia, research at a company, research at a federal laboratory. In the end, I did interview for jobs in those areas, but I really just hadn't had the opportunity to informally sit back and talk about my options. And I think that would have been really helpful.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
She encourages students to try different methods.

Ellen Ochoa (14:35):
Advice that I would offer would be, think intentionally about what is going to help you as you move on past graduate school. Probably, the first people you will talk to are your advisors, but get recommendations from them of other people you can talk to, maybe other grad students they've had over the years who have gone off into a variety of careers who would be more than happy I'm sure to talk to you. And I think that would be really helpful for people who are just starting out in their STEM careers.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Colleges and universities aren't the only institutions that need cultures of mentorship. Workplaces also have to develop a culture that supports and values effective mentoring. In this culture, students and professionals can have an easier time finding the right support. They can be honest when a mentoring relationship isn't working for them, or can feel free to ask for different support from different people. This kind of culture empowers mentees to be transparent with their mentors, acknowledge their needs and progress further in their chosen STEM field to places they may have never dreamed of going before.
Thanks for listening. In the coming weeks we'll be announcing live, virtual discussing groups, and question and answer sessions to help you learn to implement best practices in mentorship for STEM. To learn more, visit nas.edu/mentoring.