NASA’s
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
I am currently in a social media role on NASA JPL’s Media Relations team in the Communications Directorate, where I deliver space, mission, and science news to more than 7 million social followers. You might know NASA JPL for its many robotic 🤖 and spacecraft missions such as Voyager, the Perseverance Mars Rover, or my new favorite - Europa Clipper.
See some of my work below ⤵
Mission rocket Launches
SWOT Launch
The SWOT satellite is circling our planet, surveying the world’s surface water. Before it launched into space, I led a series of social activities to help the world better understand this important mission, which included 150+ pieces of content over five months across @NASAJPL, @NASA, @NASAEarth, and @NASAClimate social channels. Post-launch, we polled our audience, and it was great to see that several of our key messages stuck with them!
A few key social activities included a Twitter AMA, episodic Instagram Lives with mission experts, and several livestreams from Vandenberg Space Force Base covering the launch and taking live questions from viewers on social media.
Psyche Launch
Psyche was the first launch I attended at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. After launching in October 2023, Psyche is headed to a metal-rich asteroid that will help us better understand how planets like Earth are formed.
As the lead for JPL social support of the mission and launch, I orchestrated a social campaign that spanned over six months and included 200+ pieces of content across @NASAJPL, @NASA, @NASASolarSystem, and partner accounts like Arizona State University. “Psyche Mission” was mentioned 114,000 times on social media, with a reach of 2.5 billion. Key social activities included a NASA Social, live briefings, pre-launch mission explainer content, coverage of unique mission milestones, exclusive behind-the-scenes content with mission engineers and scientists, and moment-by-moment updates during launch.
Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has been one of my favorite missions to cover and some of the most engaging content on our NASA JPL social channels since its first flight on Mars in 2021. Using our social channels, I had the unique privilege of letting the world know when the helicopter was preparing to fly and the outcome of each flight. It surpassed expectations and ended up completing 72 flights on the red planet. When it came time to announce the helicopter had flown its final flight, we wanted to keep the tone celebratory and also find a way to bring the public along to let them say goodbye.
A few end-of-mission social activities I helped lead included congratulatory messages from notable people like NASA astronauts and Star Trek's William Shatner and a video featuring mission team members saying goodbye to the helicopter. We also created memes and gifs for the public, penned a Tumblr post to talk about what we learned, and coordinated a Reddit AMA with mission engineers and scientists. A highlight was an Instagram Live with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter pilot and an Earth helicopter pilot known for his stunt flights in movies, where they geeked out about each other's jobs and chatted about pushing the limits of flight. The #ThanksIngenuity hashtag was used over 20,000 times and trended on X, the day of our end-of-mission announcement.
Voyager x Account
I am the lead on the NASA Voyager X account, and I have a lot of fun being the voice of the twin spacecraft currently exploring interstellar space - one of them (Voyager 1) being the most distant spacecraft from the Sun.
I found Voyager's audience truly cares for the probes, takes pride in their accomplishments, and is consistently curious about where they are and how they are doing. My favorite moments are when I engage and respond with comments—the community is knowledgeable and quick-witted, which means I also have to be.
Other notable social moments
Additional social moments I’m proud to have played a role in the planning and/or execution:
I created an Instagram Reel of the M4 robot using snippets of b-roll footage. It has been one of the most shared posts on our Instagram channel to date.
Opening up a JPL lab to show our audience how their names could be etched onto a microchip attached to a spacecraft that will travel to Europa. This campaign resulted in 2 million+ people signing up to send their names to Jupiter's icy moon.
A series of green screen explainer videos featuring our JPL and Caltech scientists and engineers
Helped coordinate an X Spaces event with NASA scientists to talk about dark matter and dark energy and what we might learn from ESA’s Euclid mission.
A video featuring Ant-Man Paul Rudd and JPL quantum physicist Ethan Elliott geeking out on quantum science.
A Twitch and YouTube livestream from JPL’s Space Simulator to show the public how we prepare a spacecraft to thrive and survive in the environment of space. The public also got to ask a Europa Clipper scientist and engineer questions live on-air.