Yahoo Lifestyle Meet Nasa's British head of science, Dr Nicola Fox
For most people, working at Nasa is not a back-up plan, but for Dr Nicola Fox, the head of science at the world’s most renowned space agency, there were two options: become a star or study them. "I don’t even think I would have been a good actress, I just enjoyed pretending to be someone else," she tells me.
Though she planned to audition for drama school, Fox – the only child of an engineer and a bank employee – loved science from an early age. This was encouraged by her father, a space obsessive who scooped her out of her cot when she was eight months old to watch the 1969 lunar landings. She may not recall this moment, but she does remember that he taught her about the solar system. "Just imagine what it would be like to work for Nasa," he told her.
Fox never made it to drama school. She read physics at Imperial College London, where she went on to complete a PhD in space and atmospheric physics. After presenting at a conference in Alaska in 1995, she was approached by the space agency. "It really never occurred to me as a genuine possibility," she admits. "I grew up in Hertfordshire, so thought the only opportunities open to me would be working at a university or in one of the research labs."
Fox successfully applied for the organisation’s postdoctoral programme open to overseas students. She found herself at the Goddard Space Centre in Maryland, working on Nasa missions under the tutelage of the revered astrophysicist Mario Acuña. "I remember feeling chills while driving through the gate for the first time with my badge," she says. "I still get that feeling, even now. When I get bogged down in the minutiae of my day, it reminds me that I am doing something truly inspirational. The shared purpose here keeps us going. I’ve looked at 75 boring budget spreadsheets today and I’ve got a headache. But then, I remind myself that we’re going to launch a mission to study an icy moon around Jupiter…That’s really freaking cool!"
Fox worked for Nasa for three years before moving to Johns Hopkins University’s applied physics laboratory, where she stayed for almost two decades. By the time she left, she was chief scientist for Heliophysics . She returned to Nasa in 2018 as the director of the Heliophysics Division, and when, last year, she became the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate (known as the head of science), she became the first Brit, and only the second woman, to hold the position since Nasa’s inception in 1958. "I’ve definitely had a couple of teachers or bosses who were less than supportive," she says. "One supervisor would intimidate me so much that I was too terrified to open my mouth, so they’d say, “Can one of you clever lads give me the answer?” I used to have a lot of imposter syndrome and be afraid to ask questions in case someone thought I was stupid, but I realised at some point that if you need to ask, it’s because somebody didn’t explain it to you properly."
Fox describes the culture at her current workplace as inclusive. She also expresses pride in the diverse team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab . A particular manager early on in her time there took the blame when she answered a question incorrectly in a meeting. "When I asked him why he did that, he said, 'I’ve already had my career. I can make a mistake and nobody cares, but you have to be able to hold your head up in that next meeting.”’
One wonders how much Fox modelled herself on these early examples of effective leadership, or if she ever felt she had to. At her own admission, every step of her career has felt like an unexpected development. She did not join Nasa as a postdoc, she says, with the expectation of ever leading the entire science department. She believes her successful trajectory has as much to do with great mentorship as hard work.
"I’ve always been really energised about my work and that gets noticed. I’ve also had so many great leaders who have encouraged me to speak at press conferences or apply for senior positions," she recalls. "Working on the Van Allen Probes [launched in 2012 to study radiation belts around the earth] was the first time I was given a management role. We had our initial team meeting on 11 September, 2001, and so we stood together and watched as those events unfolded. It bonded us and made me realise that those close connections are vital for the success of any project. It also taught me a lot about my potential as a leader. By the time my current job became available, I threw my hat in the ring and was lucky enough to be selected!"
Much of Fox’s role now is divorced from the hands-on application of the science she so adores, and is instead focused on overseeing more than 140 missions across the agency. "I may not be doing the research myself, but I am so curious about everything all my divisions are doing," she says. When she was a young researcher, she was praised for writing handwritten letters to scientists all over the world, asking them to send her their data. To Fox, this seemed natural, but she had managed to bring together academics more typically found arguing than collaborating.
"Gathering a network and gaining a tapestry of data is my strong suit," she agrees. "I don’t think I ever would have been a great researcher if I just had to sit on my own and analyse results all day. I’m a pack animal – I function well with others, and I think that helps, because my team now is greater than anything I ever imagined."
Her role comes, of course, with a heavy degree of responsibility. Failure can mean the loss of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment and years of work. As we speak, the astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are still stuck on the International Space Station after their Boeing Starliner returned without them due to technical complications.
"Space is not for the faint of heart," says Fox. "Everything we do has risk, so we are constantly asking how we reduce it or, if a day doesn’t go our way, what we learnt from our mistakes so it doesn’t happen again." She refers to herself as Sisyphus, always pushing a boulder up a hill that rolls down again for her to push back up. No matter how often she tells herself that "challenges are just opportunities", she admits that the job takes an emotional toll. "When we lost contact with Voyager One." She adds with a laugh: "I cry a lot here."
Fox is working at a time when galactic exploration is entering what’s often referred to as its Second Age. By 2030, the International Space Station will retire to make room for multiple commercial operations. Already, enterprises such as Elon Musk’s Space X and Boeing are dominating the sphere as much as Nasa itself. "I would struggle to give you any of our missions that do not involve some collaboration with the commercial sector," says Fox. "I want to get more science into space. That is my goal, and by working in partnership, we are sharing the risk, the costs and the innovation."
Many of these ventures directly affect life on earth. Nasa science missions send back data that directly improve lives on earth and in space every day from observing our changing climate to understanding our sun to even studying biological cells in zero gravity. During our conversation, Fox mentions the Parker Solar Probe – it is the fastest moving object ever built, currently reaching speeds of 394,736 miles an hour, designed to study particles close to the sun. She unapologetically calls it her favourite enterprise, as she was part of a "team that got me through the darkest periods of my life".
In 2010, just months before she took on the role of leading the project, her husband John Sigwarth, a fellow scientist at Nasa, died suddenly of an aneurysm, aged just 49, while at home with their two young children. She had his name sent up with the probe, so that her children would know that their father would ‘orbit the sun forever’.
For a woman whose remit includes the entire galaxy, she is happiest at home with her teenage son and daughter. "I used to take my kids to as much as possible. Both of them have been at launches since they were babies," she says. "They’ve always been my biggest cheerleaders." Now, when life at the world’s biggest space agency gets too much, she goes to the nail salon with her daughter, or builds ‘lots and lots of Lego’ with her son. But for one of Nasa’s leading ladies, there is still a final frontier: space itself. "Would I like to go?" She laughs incredulously when I ask. "Where do I sign up, please?!"
Get tickets to see Dr Nicola Fox's keynote speech at the Bazaar At Work Summit on Tuesday 3 December here.
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