Search Interviews

Jonathan Karpoff (63) interviews his father, Fred Karpoff (98), about his experiences with social justice efforts, anti-Communist sentiments and his hopes for the future.

Tassia Tkatschenko (39) and her mother, Nancy Dunne Byington (66), share a conversation about their family, the communities they have lived in, and their careers in naturopathic medicine and psychiatric nursing. They also discuss how capitalism is impacting the environment...

Dr. Rama Nemani, Senior Earth Scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, works on ecological forecasting. In this interview, we discuss how Rama’s career trajectory moved from farming to supercomputing, NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), the difference between simulation modeling and...

Dr. Matthew Johnson's research is in atmospheric chemistry, a branch of atmospheric science, which looks at the composition and chemistry of Earth's atmosphere, such as aerosols and trace gas emissions, and how particles may impact human health. Dr. Johnson's research...

John Painter shares his Moon Landing story for the Moon Landing in Context Project at Framingham State University. John discusses his experience serving as an Air Force Navigator in the late 1950s, working as an Electrical Engineer at the NASA...

Ozzie talks about his space travel dreams, becoming interested in space, and his love of his ham radio.

Bill talks to his son about his career in the military before he was forced to change careers. His subsequent life as a civil engineer allowed him to stay closer to his family.

In the summer of 2015, Bob Conover led a team of 12 volunteers to restore a 50-year-old Ranger spacecraft at the California Science Center. Bob is a retired JPL engineer who originally worked on the Ranger at JPL in its...

Weena (34) interviews her grandparents, Margaret (85) and John (88), about how they grew up and how they met at NASA.

Jesselle (61) interviews her son, Erik (18), about his struggles with Asperger’s syndrome and Bipolar disorder.

Dr. Egle Cekanaviciute is a Principal Investigator and Research Scientist in the Radiation Biophysics Laboratory at the NASA Ames Research Center. She is also one of the Course Directors for STAR (Spaceflight Technologies, Application and Research), an intensive training course...

Dr. Amber McCullum is an Applied Research Scientist for the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute (BAERI) at NASA Ames who is currently co-developing a drought tool with the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources that includes remote sensing and ground-based...

John "Jay" O’Brien (75) and Dale Smith (49) discuss their love for cattle ranching and land stewarding, what brought them to it and what keeps them happily engaged in the work they do.

Stephen Yonkowski (86) talks to his daughter, Stephania Holland [no age given], about his childhood, his family, and his career as an engineer.

Rhoda Justice Garcia (72) talks with her friend Candyce Bennett (68) about childhood memories of growing up during the time of the NASA space program, living at Cocoa Beach, near Patrick's Airforce Base, and Satelite Beach.

One Small Step conversation partners Jim Brown (75) and Paul Anderson (78) have a conversation about their backgrounds, losses in life, political views, education, the environment, and meeting up in the future for a beer. They find common ground despite...

Jonathan Hale is one of 25 students in the new Student Airborne Science Activation (SaSa) program at the NASA Ames Research Center. Students at SaSa are undergraduates from minority-serving institutions, competitively selected across the United States. Over the course of...

Emelie C. Gill (91), tells her daughter, Alicia (50), about growing up in Kansas City, meeting her husband Pat, working during WWII, and moving to Houston so that Pat could work for the space program.

Dr. David Des Marais is a senior space scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. In this interview, we talk about his research into the role of carbon on Earth and in space, what Mars could teach us about life on...

Dr. Ella Sciamma-O’Brien is a research scientist in laboratory astrophysics and planetary science. As a member of the Astrophysics and Astrochemistry Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center, Dr. Sciamma-O’Brien has been working on the Titan Haze Simulation (THS) experiment, developed on the...

Dr. Mary Beth Wilhelm is a research space scientist at NASA Ames Research Centre. In this interview, Mary Beth talks about lab hopping, visiting five continents in five months, winning the Ames Early Career Researcher Award, and her hopes for...

Beth Moeller sat down with Ed Kowalchuk just after the Space X Dragon Launch to discuss lessons learned from immigrant parents, his own immigration to the US from Canada, a career at IBM including little known back room experiences from...

Claudia Crowley interviews her parents Claude and Carolyn Crowley about their careers and personal interests.

Dr. Naseem Rangwala is an astrophysicist and project scientist for the SOFIA mission. SOFIA, or the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a modified Boeing 747 airplane carrying a large telescope. SOFIA observes the universe through long infrared wavelengths. As...

Dr. Tori Hoehler is a scientist at NASA Ames, with a background in chemistry and oceanography. He now studies the interaction of microbial communities with their environment, with an emphasis on the habitability of environments beyond Earth and the detectability...