- Collaborations are huge. And really the way that science should be done is getting as many people with as many good ideas as possible to be able to push it farther than anyone could do on their own. The main collaboration that I was a part of was one of the science investigation teams for the Roman Space Telescope. That has since dissolved, but is coming back in a new form in the near future. But being able to work with many other people on that front was very... You know, we communicated. We had telecoms and meetings in person, and being able to collaborate and talk to people and get new ideas, fresh perspectives when you're really stuck on a problem, yeah, is key.

- [Announcer] You're listening to "Further Together, the ORAU Podcast." Join Michael Holtz and his guests for conversations about all things ORAU. They'll talk about ORAU story history, our impact on an ever-changing world, our innovative scientific and technical solutions for our customers, and our commitment to the communities where we do business. Welcome to "Further Together, the ORAU Podcast."

- Welcome to "Further Together, the ORAU Podcast." Recently I had the opportunity to speak with several NASA National Postdoctoral Program research fellows about the amazing work that they're doing. And I gotta tell you, I think you'll agree with me, their work is amazing, and it's very interesting. If you're a space junkie like I am, you're gonna nerd out on these conversations. Enjoy. So, Dr. Samson Johnson, talk to me a little bit about who you are, your current role with the NASA NPP Fellows program and a little bit about your background. How did you get to where you are?

- Yeah, yeah, so my story, I grew up in Montana, in Missoula, Montana, and I went to my hometown university for my undergraduate. That's the University of Montana. And then from there, I did a a year off in between my undergrad and graduate studies where I still got to work in astronomy, but then moved on to Ohio State University where I did my graduate studies with Scott Gowdy on microlensing and the detection of exoplanets. So, my work there was all about getting preparations done for the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. So that'll be launching in 2026, 2027. And one of its big components is a microlensing study for exoplanets, and that's sort of brought me... Once I finished up there this summer... So I've only been an NPP for, you know, all of like three months maybe, so, just a little bit.

- Excellent.

- And yeah, so I've been working on that and also trying to dive into understanding what's exoplanet demographics, so, you know, what the population of exoplanets looks like. So yeah, that's sort of the nutshell. Did I miss anything?

- No, you didn't. For folks who may know, not know this like me, what is an exoplanet?

- Exoplanet, yeah, that's a... Yeah, it's a good question. So, it's a shortened version of extrasolar planet.

- Okay.

- So all it is is a planet around another star

- I gotcha.

- Other than our suns. So we've got our eight planets, and we know of, yeah, roughly, well, I don't know. I think the latest number, official number, is just over 5,000 or maybe a little bit more. I can't remember. I haven't looked at the archive in a while. So we know of quite a few of 'em, but, you know, there's still a lot more to learn.

- Awesome. Well, and I have to say, as a personal side note, Montana is one of my favorite places in the world.

- Oh, no way. Yeah, have you ever been to Missoula?

- My wife and I have been to Glacier National Park a couple of times and absolutely love it. And spent some time in Missoula as well, so, there you go.

- Yeah, yeah, Glacier. Everyone always talks about Yellowstone. Glacier is where it's at. Glacier is way... Like, for wildlife, you know, geothermal stuff that's Yellowstone, but for like good mountains and just beautiful you know, scenery, Glacier. Oh yeah, 100% Glacier.

- Heaven's Peak is my favorite place in the world.

- Yep, oh yeah.

- In Glacier National Park. And I have a University of Montana hoodie, actually, so..

- Oh, no way, awesome.

- I do.

- Go Grizz, go Grizz.

- Absolutely love, love, love, love. If we had a choice, Montana would probably be the place I'd retire, but I'd have to talk to my wife about that.

- Yeah. Got some sales to do.

- For sure. On a more serious and related note, has science always been an interest for you? I mean, I sort of have to imagine living in a place with big open skies, you know, especially at night being able to see so many stars and the planets. So that has to be pretty thrilling, A, but did that, you know, fire up your interest, or was this something that came to you at a different point in life?

- Came to me at a different point in life. Growing up in Montana, it's a lot of... I wouldn't say have and have not, but you have to pay to live there. So I come from like a low income background and grew up pretty hard I would say. I had like like a pretty early exposure to drugs and alcohol. I've had a job since I was like 13. And so, yeah, honestly, I remember when I was looking for my first job, my dream career was working at a gas station because you just get to sit behind the counter all day, and really I thought you did nothing, but... But then, yeah, you know, long story short, in high school, I, you know, had a lot of people looking out for me and pushed me in the right direction. And so then I initially went into college thinking I would study physics, so, yeah, University of Montana, but there, my undergraduate advisor, Nathan McCrady, he convinced me that astronomy is where it's at, and I've, you know, never looked back since. So I didn't really know what I was doing until later in my undergrad. So it's been a relatively short time. Even though like you say, like, yeah, these beautiful skies, all this, you know, stuff, there's so much nature and beautiful stuff, that was one of the things I did wanna get into was like sort of like conservation work or like studying like endangered species and stuff. That was my sort of like my first intro to thinking about science as a career. I would say that was in high school, but then started to move into physics and then astro, yep.

- Gotcha, awesome. So it sounds like, as you're talking a little bit about your background, you had some really great mentors early on as early as high school to sort of help you find your direction. How important has that been to you, and how important is it now knowing that the NASA NPP is a mentored fellowship program?

- Yeah, it was huge for me. Yeah, the one person I definitely want to, you know, I always give her credit for everything is Mrs. Frank, my freshman year of high school earth science teacher. At the end of our, you know, year, she gave me like a letter recommending to me to take... They were offering a new sort of science fair type course at the high school. I can't remember, it was like advanced problems in science. I can't remember. It was some name, but like that was when I was still... You know, I was being a roughy, and I was being a a big piece of trouble, but I don't know what she saw in me to motivate her to do that, but that sort of, you know, pushed this tiny little domino and led to, you know, totally changing the course of my life. So having that person and then, you know, mentors, other mentors in high school, Kelly Nelson, Brett Taylor, and then on into college, yeah, and then every step of the way I've had mentors helping me, you know, make it as far as I have. And so yeah, it's huge to continue that and, you know, continue to have great mentors.

- Awesome, and have you had the opportunity, and I know you're young in your fellowship, you know, having only been in it for a few months, but have you had the opportunity to mentor others at this point in your career?

- Yeah, yeah, I tried to make that a priority as soon as I could in my graduate school career. So yeah, I've mentored a few undergraduates sort of independently, and those that are sort of a research advisor slash mentor role, but then at Ohio State, there's a program called Polaris that I participated in for like, I think, three years, which is targeted towards improving the retainment of like women and undergraduate or underrepresented minorities in the undergraduate program for physics and astronomy, so trying to fix leaky pipelines, you know, keep numbers up in those programs to, you know, help students along their first year. And so, yeah, that's, you know, trying to put back in what I've taken out of the system, you know, of trying to mentor people and help them find their way. Yeah.

- Awesome, I love that. What elements of working in science have you found to be the most empowering for you?

- Hmm, yeah, I've been rolling around this question. I think what I would say is the most empowering is being able to help people in networks or that, you know, advisor or mentoring role, trying to, you know, help people find their own way in the sciences or STEM careers. The other part is being able to chart my own course and like do what I want to do and learn about what I wanna learn about and to use my imagination. That's sort of the end goal for me. And, you know, trying to, as I said, help people find that for themselves is, I would say, one of the more empowering things about it.

- Awesome, and I know, again, you know, you're early in your fellowship, having only been there a few months, but what has the impact been already? What kind of impacts are you seeing already in being part of the fellowship program?

- Yeah, the impacts that I've had already, or that, yeah, the way I've been impacted already is that, you know, networking opportunities have opened up. I might have said this, I'm at JPL, so Jet Propulsion Lab. Yeah, just networking opportunities, being able to meet people that I've never met before or only run into one or two times at meetings. It's nice. I've been able to put a lot of names to faces or faces to names and get to meet people

- Awesome.

- And talk to them. I think that's been, I would say, the biggest impact, just broadening, you know, the networking horizons.

- Samson, you may have talked about this a little bit already, but can you talk about a time when you faced a sizable obstacle in your work and how you were able to overcome it?

- I think just life. Like, there's so many different life events that happen that trying to be able to juggle, you know, big events in life, whether they're good or bad with still trying to keep forward momentum, and work is always, you know, a very hard... It's you're fighting on two fronts at the very least. You know, there's life going on. You know, scientists don't just do science in a vacuum. We still have to live. We're still humans, you know? I think that's been the hardest part, yeah, just in general.

- Yeah, yeah. Well, and along those lines of science doesn't happen in a vacuum, your work doesn't happen in a vacuum either, right? So there's very much a collaborative process in the sciences. Talk about how you are able to collaborate and how you collaborate with others at JPL.

- Yeah.

- And elsewhere in NASA for that matter.

- Yeah, collaborations are huge. And really the way that science should be done is getting as many people with as many good ideas as possible to be able to push it farther than you know, anyone could do on their own. The main collaboration that I was a part of was one of the science investigation teams for the Roman Space Telescope. That has since dissolved, but is coming back in a new form in the near future. But being able to work with many other people on that front was very... You know, we communicated. We had telecoms and meetings in person, and being able to collaborate and talk to people and get new ideas, fresh perspectives when you're really stuck on a problem, yeah, is key. Yeah, I'm trying to think of other collaborations, or did I answer your question even? I can't remember now.

- You did, you did. No, that sounds like a great collaboration to discuss. So, I really appreciate that. For someone who might be following in your footsteps, what would you say to a young and up and coming scientist?

- The biggest thing I would say is set your long-term goals, but don't let those distract you from the path that is, you know, unfolding in front of you. Always keep an eye on where things are at currently. Don't get lost 10 years ahead or five years ahead. Try and see where things are, I wouldn't say, path of least resistance, but, you know if there's great opportunity, follow great opportunity. Don't get stuck in, you know, trying to trudge through you know, miles of mud when there's a bridge right over there sort of thing.

- Right.

- The other thing I always try and keep in perspective that I've seen a number of people do is, you know, school and degrees aren't the end goal like getting done with, you know, undergrad or graduate school, or, you know, any sort of milestone isn't the goal necessarily. It's just the tool you need to do the job later. That's the perspective I've tried to keep in mind as I was considering whether I wanted to go to graduate school or not, or, you know, really anything. Like, evaluate it, what is it gonna do for you, and how will it enable your future goals?

- Cool, great advice. And again, knowing you've been in your fellowship just a short amount of time, why would you recommend NASA NPP Fellowship to others?

- I would recommend it for... Even though there's a lot of bureaucracy, it comes with a lot of freedom. You're able to pursue what you want, think about, you know, what you would like to study and work on there. Like I said, it's NASA. It's a government agency. There's gonna be some, you know, hoops you have to jump through to do it, but you'll be able to do it and meet a lot of amazing people, and yeah, it's a fantastic opportunity.

- Well, and I've heard this. You've said something I've heard in almost all of the interviews I've done with folks is there's this freedom, like I have this idea.

- Yeah, exactly.

- To be able to pursue that idea to its next logical point, if there is one, or, you know, to follow it through to an end or to a next stage seems to be a great part of that culture.

- Yeah, yeah, especially, yeah, being able to work with people also, you know, who have some big ideas and like to think big and, you know, bounce ideas off of them. You know, it's a fantastic opportunity.

- Awesome. Last question.

- Yeah.

- What brings you joy, Dr. Johnson?

- What brings me joy?

- What brings you joy?

- Ooh, I think learning or finding out, you know, a cool facet of an interesting topic or like having that little light bulb click when I understand something. I think that's one of the things that, you know, it piques my interest and I want to go on a deep dive learning about something. Right now, the NPP Symposium is going on, and I just saw talk earlier today about precipitation and the photosynthetic response of plants, stuff I don't work on at all, but it was just like, wow, that's so cool that there's so much to know about anything. That's something that can always, you know, bring me a little bit of happiness, learning something new or, you know, hearing about someone's passions, yeah.

- Cool, I love that answer. Dr. Sam Johnson, thank you so much for spending this time with me. I really appreciate it.

- Thank you you so much. I'm glad I was be able to be here, and it was a pleasure getting to talk to you.

- You too. Have a great day.

- You too, bye.

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