Naod Araya
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Elizabeth Frank, Applied Planetary Scientist, First Mode, Seattle (47.6° N, 122.3° W)

An applied planetary scientist at First Mode, Elizabeth Frank works at the intersection of science and engineering. Now living in Seattle, Washington, Elizabeth graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2009 with a degree in interdisciplinary science. She then went on to complete her PhD in planetary geochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2014. During our interview, I had the great pleasure of discussing what her current position entails and how Elizabeth followed her interests to make the switch from academia to industry.

Prior to college, Elizabeth had an interest in astrobiology, and while in college, she discovered a deep fascination with geology. Since RPI had no astrobiology major, she used the interdisciplinary science degree to customize her own astrobiology major that included a concentration in geology. During her PhD, she interned at NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and soon developed a fascination with spacecraft missions. Wanting to explore her space exploration ‘itch’ further, Elizabeth decided to do a postdoc at the Carnegie Institution for Science, where she worked on analyzing data from NASA’s MESSENGER mission. Her postdoc experience confirmed her passion for space exploration, but it also finally unearthed the truth that academia was not the path she wished to follow. With no mentor to advise her on how to leave academia successfully, she began the daunting process of deep introspection. Deciding to leave was only part of the journey; she now had to figure out where to go.

From a young age, Elizabeth has been exposed to the intersections—or, as she eloquently describes them, the colliding worlds—of science and engineering, as well as academia and industry. She soon found her career niche at the confluence of these colliding worlds. First Mode is in a rapid state of growth and seeks to play an important role in linking the increasingly commercial space industry with the planetary science community. As an applied planetary scientist, Elizabeth provides technical expertise, project management, and business development on a diverse assortment of projects in space exploration and mining. Her background in the earth sciences has allowed her to tackle projects from a wide breadth of fields. Over time, she has developed a specialized skill set of translating scientific objectives into engineering requirements, asking targeted questions to define exact problems, uncovering the main motivations of clients, and helping unpack biases and assumptions. These soft communication skills set her apart because she can successfully bridge the language and knowledge gap between scientists and engineers, which, in turn, allows her company to provide planetary scientists with the engineering support that they require to conduct their research.

Elizabeth’s nonlinear path serves an important reminder that being bold and true to yourself is not something to fear. Making the transition from academia to industry was undoubtedly stressful, but it led her to an exciting and meaningful career in a burgeoning industry. As someone also interested in the intersection of science and engineering, I found the conversation with Elizabeth to be an affirming and inspiring experience. Her journey reminds me that only I can truly shape my destiny.

For more inspiration and information, check out her amazing blog where she documents her learned experiences in making the leap from academia to industry and in balancing the colliding worlds of science and engineering!

Highlights from the interview:

Can you start by telling me a little about yourself?

Sure. So, from New York originally. Went to college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Upstate New York, where I came in as a biochem, biophysics major. Quickly realized I didn’t find it interesting. I ended up switching over to geology, totally fell in love, and I realized over a course of internships as an undergrad, I could combine my interests in astrobiology and geology with planetary science—specifically planetary geology. So, I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder to study planetary geochemistry, and then I ended up going to JPL, NASA’s jet propulsion lab, for a summer. It really confirmed my interest and fascination in spacecraft admissions.

After I finished my PhD, I ended up going to the Carnegie Institution for Science, where I was a postdoc working on NASA’s MESSENGER mission. MESSENGER was a spacecraft that orbited the planet Mercury for four years, and I was there for the last six months of operations and the year afterwards. I was getting basically, not quite real time, but data downloads from my computer every day from space from this instrument that was pointed at Mercury, trying to study its geochemistry. That was a great experience, and it really confirmed my passion for space exploration.

But I decided that academia wasn’t the right environment for me, so I decided to [pursue] further opportunities. I was fortunate to join Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company, in 2016, initially as a geospatial analyst. That was really awesome because I was able to take a whole lot of information and learn a lot about spacecraft engineering and how that happens—but also from the commercial perspective, which was the contrast to my experience working on a NASA mission, which is funded by NASA and the motivation is purely scientific.

Unfortunately, everybody was laid off about a year and a half ago. I took a break from work for about six months, and then I joined a new company called First Mode that, actually, my former coworkers had started. I’m using my background in planetary science to create opportunities for us to support the space exploration community for scientific purposes and for other purposes as well. I’m also doing technical project management actually outside of space, specific to terrestrial mining. Yeah, so now it’s a very grab-bag of things I do. I work in multiple sectors, so the projects I work on are very diverse and interesting and range between proposals to do NASA-related instrument proposals or to build instruments to solve problems that specific mines are facing in terms of technology development. I’m not doing fundamental research anymore, but I’m using my background to solve practical problems.

I feel like your career path is so unique because as someone who studies geology, I’ve never heard of planetary science in the private sector. I was like “Really? You can actually do planetary science without academia?”

Yeah, it’s something that’s extremely unique. I didn’t know I could do it until I did it. It’s not something that’s talked about within academia. I have my own website, and I have a blog about what it’s like to be in planetary science in industry because it’s such a unique career path, and people don’t understand what I do. If you’d asked me a few years ago—let’s say five years ago today, that was 2014, actually pretty close to today I was defending my PhD—I had no idea that this would be where I ended up five years later. I’m really happy how it’s worked out. So, yeah, it’s definitely been a nonlinear path, but it’s been really fun. I’m definitely happier in the current work setting than I would have been in academia, for sure.

Okay, so to step a little back, everyone’s family, community, and life circumstances create an initial role for them in society. What was expected from you from that initial community? Did you adhere to it, or did you stray from it?

Okay. So, my dad is a civil engineer, and my mom studied biology in college. Eventually, when I was in high school, she went back to school to get her MBA, and now she does project management at an engineering firm. So, I come from a science and engineering family. My parents were very focused on us having a good education, me and my brothers. I came from a very supportive family, where their number one priority was getting us set up for success. I’m very fortunate to have grown up in that kind of environment, where they recognized my interest in science and really helped facilitate that as parents. I’m extremely fortunate in that my parents scraped and scrounged and paid for my college education, so I don’t have any student debt going forward. I know that’s not a privilege everyone has, but I recognize that. I wish everybody had that kind of support structure.

In college, I did a bunch of internships. I had mentors…some good, some bad. One of them was my academic advisor in college. I basically walked to his office, and I told him what I wanted to do, which was create my own major. I was literally the only person in 1200 people who had this major when I graduated. I walked into my advisor’s office and said, “These are the classes I’m going to take,” and he’s like, “Cool. Sounds good.” And he was just very supportive and let me guide my path.

As a PhD student, my advisor expected me to stay in academia, and that didn’t happen. I knew pretty early on, and I communicated pretty early on, that I didn’t want to be a professor, but in planetary science that typically leaves working at a research institution or NASA. And so, I think he expected me to do that. I did a postdoc, which was a great postdoc, and my postdoc was at a place that’s very academic in nature. It’s not at a university, but it’s a research institute. It’s a great environment to be a scientist; it’s adult scientist playground. It’s very supportive, there’s good funding, it’s a great place. But that environment made me realize, even with the best possible circumstances, I wasn’t happy in that working situation. I wanted something that was faster paced, where I saw more tangible work products come out of my efforts. I didn’t really feel that so much in the work I was doing as a scientist doing research.

I had to take it upon myself to figure out how to find an alternative career path, and that involved using my free time. Research what I could do, how to reframe my academic background into something that would be desirable to a company. My postdoc advisor was supportive in the sense that he wasn’t judgmental, but he didn’t know what to do because in academia, most academics stay in academia. They don’t know what to tell people who want to pursue their career paths because they don’t have the first-hand experience. I had to forge my own path in many ways. Part of my motivation for blogging about my experience and being active on Twitter about alternative careers outside of traditional career paths is—you get to define what success means to you. Don’t let anybody drag you down because they think that you’re supposed to follow their interpretation of success. Only you can identify what success means to you. For me, it’s been fulfilled here at a small startup company, which has been really fun, but certainly isn’t something that was on the radar of anyone that would have mentored me over the course of my career.

Have you been using your blog as a way to mentor people who are on a similar wavelength as you?

Yeah, so I basically am using it as a way to capture lessons learned. I’ve both been an interviewee, as someone trying to find a job, and I’ve also had a lot of experience now being an interviewer, as someone who has structured the interview process at her company. And so, I understand the mechanics of how that process works, and what a company like mine looks for in people, and the best ways that someone who is coming from academia can present themselves—because the framework for how we identify as professionals is different in academia versus industry.

In academia, you present yourself as a Mars expert, like for geomorphology, or somebody who studies the atmosphere tightening. It’s your topic. Your identity is wrapped around a particular topic. In industry, your professional identity is determined more by your skills and what value you bring to a company because of previous successes that you’ve had. It’s important to point to things that you’ve achieved and accomplished on behalf of the previous organization that you worked for. It’s the different mentality of how your professional value is judged, and you can see it if you look at a resume versus a CV. A CV is a collection of all the talks you’ve given, all the publications you’ve written, your education, that kind of thing, promoting and describing how you’re an expert in a particular topic. Whereas a resume should be a summary of all of your successes, your wins, and how you’ve provided value in the past to previous organizations, how you bring value to a future organization. Because of your skills. So, it’s a different way of thinking about yourself and what value you bring to a particular community, and that’s why people have trouble making that transition from academia to industry because they don’t get trained on seeing those differences. I’m trying to transmit that information and share that knowledge for people who are where I was, trying to break out of academia. And I’m hoping that it helps people. I have had people reach out to me like, “Thank you so much for doing this,” and “Do you have some time to talk on the phone to help me with this decision?” so I’m happy to help people out because I’ve been there, I get it.

Now I’d like to switch more into your current position and your industry. What does your position entail? What do you do on a daily basis?

In general, I do business development in planetary science, which is a really weird thing to say. But, basically, what that means is that I go to conferences, I reach out to people when I see NASA funding opportunities that could have a good partnership with my company and the scientists, and figure out how we could work together to get a project funded through a proposal.

I’m the only planetary scientist at the company right now, and I work with electrical, mechanical, software, systems engineers. If a planetary scientist needs help with something related to engineering, I have my team of engineers behind me, and I can help make that connection and provide that support that helps them develop tools to do their research. And there’s a level of translation from scientific objectives into engineering requirements, which is actually a specialized skill set that I’ve developed over the years, because engineers are excited to build things. They want to go build. But whenever they build something, any design decision that they make should be routed back to an original scientific objective. On the other hand, scientists don’t always know what they want in order to meet those objectives. They’re not engineers; they don’t really know what they need in order to create a tool. That could be a spacecraft, it could be a laboratory instrument, it could be any number of things. I work in the middle to try and facilitate communication between those. And then there’s an element of proposal management, writing. So, I do go back into literature. I can learn as much as I need to know to get the job done. I get to be more of a generalist, which I like.

And then I do project management, which means I might be the person who’s in charge of executing on a particular project, and that involves running meetings and making sure that we’re meeting deadlines. Communicating with the client so that they know what’s going on. Setting up interviews with people to learn about the background of a project because we do consulting, so typically what it means is that there’s a particular problem that a company or a client is having and we’re being brought on to help solve it.

So, you are like a bridge, an intermediary between the scientists and engineers. Would you say your primary skill set is built upon that and built upon communicating science to people who are not particularly knowledgeable in science and engineering to scientists?

Kind of. I think it’s talking to the scientists. And sometimes scientists go into conversations with engineers, and they think they know what they want with regards to the specifications of a particular tool, but they don’t because they’re not engineers. They don’t actually know what they need to get the job done. I peel that back into “What do you actually want? I know you want a million-pixel resolution. You’re not going to get that. What do you actually need to get sufficient data to answer your scientific question?” Sometimes that involves digging deeper, asking questions, and really getting at the core of what they actually need to solve their problems or achieve their goals.

And that’s not just for scientists, that’s for any client. For example, I’m a technical lead for a project right now in the mining industry. And so, what I’m doing right now for that project is interviews and trying to get at “What’s really your problem?” When people give an answer, it’s following up and just digging deeper into what they’re saying, because sometimes they make assumptions about what they need, but they’re not thinking about why they need it. It’s important to understand motivations. And then on the other flip slide of that is talking to the engineers and being able to break down the scientific objectives and the scientific context in a way that they understand it and that maps to the information that they need in order to design something. Because the thing is, sometimes engineers just want a number. And I’m like, “Well, I have five different estimates, and they span three orders of magnitude, and there’s huge error bars.” So it’s a matter of bridging that gap and documenting assumptions and caveats and being in the center of those conversations and help the person achieve their objectives at the end.

How did you develop this skill? You were trained as an academic, so how did you learn how to talk to engineers and how to understand what they actually want?

On the job. I see now that a lot of the trends in academic projects that I picked involved linking different interdisciplinary sciences together to solve a common project, or solve a common objective, and that required interdisciplinary communication. My major as an undergrad was interdisciplinary science, and so I think there’s a thread throughout my career. I’ve only, within the past few years, realized that that’s where I’m happy sitting. I don’t necessarily want to be the person who’s in the weeds of every single project. I want to be a higher level up and taking the systems-level approach and knowing how this connects to that, who’s talking to that, how information is flowing. Perhaps an interesting way of showing that a scientist can have soft skills, like communication, that can be really valuable outside of academia.

Wow. I’m just really amazed by you because I feel like it’s something I relate to a lot. I’m someone who really values the whole interdisciplinary thing, so I really appreciate that. What you’ve just said really resonated with me.

I’m glad to hear it, and I wish I had people to talk to when I was in your shoes who would tell me it would be okay if I didn’t want to go into academia. I think the problem with the academic community is that you’re often expected to fit into a particular box and follow a particular career path, and the truth is that you’re not. Do what makes you happy, do what gets you excited and makes you so focused and into your work that it’s eight o’clock at night and you had no idea, you didn’t realize you missed dinner, you know. Follow that, and don’t try to follow people’s expectations for you, because you never know what kind of crazy opportunities might come up and how fun they might be.

What are some of the biggest issues or growth opportunities facing your industry right now?

What I’m excited most about is commercial space and what opportunities that could bring to the planetary science community. We’re just at the cusp of thinking about that, especially in the context of small satellites or small sats. Are you familiar with CubeSats?

Yeah, didn’t they take them to Mars recently?

Yeah, totally. Those are the Marco spacecraft. There were two CubeSats that relayed data from the InSight Lander back to Europe, which was a huge step forward for CubeSat technology because it means that we can do meaningful science with small packages for lower cost. I’m really excited about the opportunity to help bridge the gap between the commercial space sector and planetary science, which is very, pretty much exclusively, dependent on NASA. I was in the asteroid mining company, that didn’t really work out because the market just isn’t there yet for asteroid mining, so the planetary science community is dependent on NASA for funding to further space exploration. But there’s increased capabilities in the commercial space market for companies like mine to come in and help build smaller spacecrafts or participate in bigger projects in a way that allows us to show our unique perspective. I’m really excited about the opportunity to see how NASA interacts with the commercial space community to further explore the solar system and keep that ball rolling.

With private space exploration companies coming in, how do you think your company and your objectives might change?

That’s a really good question. Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin and a lot of the other launch providers are trying to lower the cost of access to space. And for planetary science, one of the most expensive costs of the mission is launch. And so, lowering launch costs imparts the reusability of rocket stages that could create more opportunities because it would create more funding to send things out to space, and so that’s one area. For a company like mine, we are offering…we’re a services-based company, we’re doing consulting, so we can come into projects with a fresh perspective and help change how something is being done to do it more efficiently or more creatively. And maybe taking a little bit more tactical risk because NASA traditionally likes to play it safe. And the NewSpace sector is really exciting because people are willing to take risks and fail, but then it’s important to, when you fail, learn from your failure. Elon Musk has been really good at demonstrating when SpaceX fails during launches and then showing how they learn for the next time from them. I think spaceflight is challenging, and there are many ways that things can go wrong. Being bold is not something to be ashamed of if you fail, as long as you can take that failure and move it forward to improve the technology the next time around. So, embrace failure. That’s my lesson learned there.

What advice would you give a student who is interested in going into your career, your field?

Well, it’s hard to say follow my footsteps and you’ll be able to end up how I did. I had to forge my own path, and it’s hard to know with a sample size of one how easy it is to duplicate that path. But, in general, I would keep your mind open to opportunities outside of academia, and don’t let people put you in a box and assume that because you’re going down a particular career path that means you can only do X, Y, or Z. You can do anything you want. And you may have to work for it, you may have to make some sacrifices, may have to really network hard. Networking is incredibly important. It’s hard to overemphasize how important networking is; I got to where I am now in part through my network. Don’t be afraid to reach outside your comfort zone and meet new people and think about how to provide value to them so they can provide value to you into the future. An introduction to somebody could change your career trajectory. That’s what happened to me, through Planetary Resources. When I put my application into Planetary, I reached out to a colleague who works at NASA who knew the CEO. He introduced me over email to the CEO of Planetary Resources, which expedited my interview process, and three months later I had a job offer. Network. Go to networking events. Don’t let them put you in a box, and make sure you’re following what you want to do and not what other people want you to do.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.