Dr.Erika Hamden is a TED fellow, Ph.D. Astrophysicist, and Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona who has been nominated by NASA for the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2019. Erika leads the team building FIREBALL, a project funded by NASA which is a large telescope that hangs from a giant balloon at the very edge of space and looks for clues on how our stars are created. Erika’s scientific endeavors have received close to $4 million in grant funding from partners like NASA and MSF.
She got her A.B., in Astronomy & Astrophysics from Harvard, a Ph.D., in Astronomy from Colombia and did her Postdoctoral Fellow at California Institute of Technology.
Despite these achievements, Erika struggled early-on when she first attended college. She felt anxious and didn't quite fit into student life. She dropped out of MIT after a short attendance period and worked at a local bookstore for 1 year. Oddly enough, she thought that maybe she was one of those smart people that couldn't thrive in high-pressure situations.
She finally gathered her courage to try her luck at college again and got into Harvard. She gave herself permission to not ace everything, but rather ease into it. Her willingness to try again led to a career as an astrophysicist and innovator. She shares that being at the edge of what's known, meaning, work to discover the unknown through cutting edge initiatives, has proved to teach her some of her most important lessons on failure and resilience.
Scientists fail 90% of the time as they navigate uncharted paths and Erika's relationship to failure and resilience is fundamental in her success. In a candid discussion, she shares the ups and downs in her riveting journey to discover the universe.
Tune in to get the full conversation and learn about:
Launching telescopes into space FIREBALL project What it takes to stand at the edge of what's known How to deal with failure What role resilience plays in success Science at it's finest Leadership lessons How to manage a team Dealing with uncertainty
Dr.Erika Hamden's biography: Dr.Erika Hamden is an astrophysicist. She studies the universe. She builds telescopes and spectrographs to observe (mostly) hydrogen in its faintest and most diffuse forms throughout our galaxy and the universe. Primarily in the ultraviolet, but sometimes the visible. She's leading a proposal for a Small Explorer class UV telescope called Hyperion. She's a professor at the University of Arizona. Dr. Erika Hamden used to be a chef. Her instagram is excellent but her CV is something else. Dr.Erika Hamden's e-mail address is: hamden at email dot arizona dot edu Connect with Dr.Erika Hamden:
Website Twitter Linkedin Instagram
This is a picture of FIREBALL (the telescope that is supported by an air balloon) next to the moon, sent by your very own Dr.Erika Hamden and co.
Full Transcription:
Erika Hamden: I was a pretty nerdy kid, oblivious about a lot of things actually.
Tanya: That’s Professor Erika Hamden, TED fellow, Ph.D. Astrophysicist, and Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona who was nominated by NASA for the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2019. Erika leads the team building FIREBALL, a project funded by NASA which is a large telescope that hangs from a giant balloon at the very edge of space and looks for clues on how our stars are created. Erika’s scientific endeavors have received close to four million in grant funding from partners like NASA and MSF.
Erika Hamden: My family, I have four sisters. I am the second to last one, so there was a lot of us around. In some ways, that was nice because no one gets too much focused attention. I spent a lot of time reading. I was always trying to talk somebody into driving me to the bookstore or the library so I could get more books.