JPL engineer Tracy Van Houten Inspires young women
Lauren DuCharme, a former intern now on the JPL staff, left, is seen with engineer Tracy Van Houten during the Mars 2020 system test. Mrs. Van Houten has worked to recruit more young women at JPL.
Tracy Van Houten, a lead engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the Perseverance Mars Rover mission, wants to encourage more girls and young women to get interested in space and other science, technology, engineering and math fields. “What gets me excited is my work on inclusion and diversity, to bring as many women, who were historically excluded from STEM, into JPL as possible. It’s inspiring to pass that excitement to the next generation,” Mrs. Van Houton, now the Europa Clipper System Testbed lead engineer, told the press. She said about 9% of JPL engineers were women when she became interested in high school in pursuing the field. Today, the number of female engineers at JPL is a little over 20%, an improvement, but more progress is needed to reach a 50-50 ratio between women and men. “We do see that girls and young women will tend to leave engineering and STEM with a higher GPA than their male counterparts who leave,” she said. “Keep going. Don’t quit when you hit those hard college classes. Seek a support system.” Mrs. Van Houten said she still gets goosebumps when she walks into mission control at JPL and sees operations spanning the solar system.
