“Have you ever stopped to think that we literally live in the outer atmosphere of our own sun,” MADHULIKA GUHATHAKURTA, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, gives overview of her journey as a young girl from far away India decades ago when, besides watching humans step foot on the moon, America, NASA, and even science for her were mere concepts, vast and unattainable, but now for her, NASA, the highest seat of space research and missions, have become routine of her daily life.
“If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go through another door or I’ll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.”
The above lines penned by my favorite poet Rabindranath Tagore, have been my life’s motto. I, an incorrigible optimist, have never let dead-ends frustrate me. STEM fields I find unique – they are where the impossible becomes reality on a daily basis.
I am Madhulika Guhathakurta, go by Lika. I work at NASA, America’s civilian space agency. Here is my story:
I grew up in India, earned my masters in astrophysics/general theory of relativity and emigrated to the US to do my PhD. For me, it was the family environment back home where we were always encouraged to ask questions and never snubbed ‘you can’t do’ something.
Very early on, perhaps, after my grandmother passed away and I was told she turned into a star in the sky, I got hooked on to watching the night sky and became a scientist!
I was then constantly asking my father: “where do we come from”, “what happens to us when we die”. My father tried his best not to shut me up, instead reason with a six year old child as he would draw a circle and say, “well, can you tell me where the beginning or the end of this circle is?” As if trying to teach me logic without making it clear that some questions perhaps do not have answers. That just stuck with me!
I spent my elementary school years in Kolkata, did middle schooling in Mumbai and went to high school through M.Phil in Delhi. When I moved from Mumbai to Delhi, I had just started the 10th grade for general School Certification (SSC) program (the two school systems were significantly different then). In Delhi, the school system had three categories – Humanties, Commerce and Science. These subjects were taught from 9 to 12th grade and the students would take board exam at the end of those four years.
A major transition for a middle/high schooler bent on doing science, choosing a science stream in the 10th grade having missed all the learning of the 9th standard. Added to that, my father wanted me to do Fine Arts (I used to sing and paint….) with higher math (I was very good in math)! I could have done Fine Arts in which I was quite at ease, without suffering the loss of the 9th grade education. This was simply not an option for the science stream! Think of all the biology lab work I would have missed…
Somehow, I had to explain to my father that I could always pursue music and painting later in life and if I did not study Science in the high school, my dream of becoming a scientist would end right there! My father understood me. I joined the 9th grade to study science (wasn’t an easy decision for an early teen kid) and never regretted a day later on in life!
My preseverence and diligence eventually paid off. I secured a place for myself in the NASA. As I gradually slogged up the ranks in the world’s best space organisation doing extreme science, my take away from life has not been all studies.
For all you young people (and old ones too 😊), while you/we have to study and work hard, you/we have to learn to respect people, you/we have to build relationships, you/we have to discuss and argue matters, not because someone tells you/us that you can or cannot do things. You/we have to have that belief wired in yourself/ourselves, continue to engage with people, be humble, and not act arrogant.
As I look at today’s younger generation, I think there’s just too much instant gratification; life just doesn’t work that way! You have to work at it, be a believer in your true self — what you want, understand that, and pursue doggedly. Do not despair if people put you down: “no, you can’t do it.” It’s only you who know whether you can or cannot do something. Pretty much all of us can do what we choose to. Having that core belief in yourself is extremely important!
I joined the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 1993 and began studying the sun and the solar wind. Later at the NASA headquarters, I got the opportunity to work as an educator, scientist, mission designer, direct and manage science programs, and build instruments for spacecrafts. Oh! how I led a brand new initiative called Living With a Star (LWS) that looks at the broad portfolio of science we do which has a direct impact on terrestrial life and human civilization.
As a heliophysicist, I study the sun not only for its sheer beauty and complexity and the vast amount of data it provides, but also because of its connectedness to everything and every space in the solar system.
Have you ever stopped to think that we literally live in the outer atmosphere of our own sun? The solar corona that we see during the total solar eclipse eventually engulfs everything in the solar system.
A hundred years ago, the Sun-Earth connection was of interest to only a small number of scientists. Solar activity had little effect on our daily life.
Today, a single strong solar flare could bring civilization to its knees. Modern society has come to depend on technologies sensitive to solar radiation and geomagnetic storms. Particularly vulnerable are the intercontinental power grids, satellite communication, GPS navigation and astronauts or astro-tourists in space. These technologies are woven into the fabric of our daily life, from health care and finance to basic utilities.
At NASA, I have been involved in solar missions that gave us the first 3D view of our sun (STEREO), the close up activity on the sun (SDO), touch the sun (Parker Solar Probe), and more recently the ESA-NASA “Solar Orbiter”. And I feel excited that on 11 February this year we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the SDO mission.
In the last three years at the NASA Ames Research Center I am working on an interesting scientific venture – investigating a different approach to doing science with public private partnership.
It is not so big a partnership that entails building big rockets or spacecrafts but simply facilitating more science by leveraging the vast amount of data collected over decades with advancements in machine learning techniques.
Over time, what I have learned is that interdepartmental and international cooperation require tenacity and negotiation skills that transcend borders and can break down bureaucracy. I would like to reference the Indian Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s book, Argumentative Indian, to illustrate the fact that dialogue is the only way to discover “the many-sided aspect of truth”.
While all my life I have been into extreme science, this I have come to realise, pursuing STEM should not happen at the expense of other disciplines, as, in all things, a fulfilled life is one of balance.
Your dogged pursuit of STEM should by no means shadow your effort in experiencing the vast richness of other human resources. You may often hear people dismiss these pursuits as unworthy or ‘soft’ because they lack the technical rigor of the STEM disciplines, however, never make the mistake of giving up your passions for STEM.
The greater your exposure to all domains of human intellectual pursuit, the more robust both your life and your science will be. Again to quote Tagore who so eloquently put it: “a mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.”
Looking back now, I can sense an almost vertigo-inducing awareness of time and distance. As a young girl growing up in far away India, I watched humans step foot on the moon. In those days America, NASA, and even scienceⁿ were mere concepts, vague and unformed in my young mind… as distant and unattainable as the lunar surface.
Yet, as I write this piece today on a machine billions of times more powerful than the one that guided mankind to the moon, I find myself an integral part of that very organisation and, through the science we pursue there everyday, have reached out into space and touched the sun.
As we have learned from Einstein, all things are relative – distances in time, space. Perceptions are no exception. What appears from one vantage point as just beyond your grasp might already be on the palm of your hand… all it takes is the will to see it and the determination to achieve. What once appeared vast and unconquerable to a young Indian school girl decades ago, is now the routine of her daily life. And I have the privilege to do so in the company of my brilliant colleagues – people of every stripe and persuasion – equals in the pursuit of human progress.
MADHULIKA GUHATHAKURTA is Astrophysicist at NASA Ames Research Centre. She can be reached at mguhathakurta@gmail.com
Opinion expressed in this article are strictly of the author and do not reflect the views of NASA.
Tags: #InternationalWomensDay #Astrophysics #Helioscience #NASA #STEM #WomenInScience
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