Watching the sausage get made: A conversation with Rachel Harris, Ph.D., NASA Postdoctoral Management Fellow
Update: 2025-09-24
Description
As a child in rural Appalachia, Rachel Harris spent her days in her father’s vegetable garden, playing with dinosaur figurines and dreaming of ancient worlds. Today, she’s part of a very different world, working behind the scenes at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., as a NASA Postdoctoral Management Program (NPMP) fellow. Harris, who holds a Ph.D. in geosciences with a focus on biogeochemistry and environmental microbiology, isn’t in a traditional lab or field site. Instead, she’s embedded in science management and policy, where NASA’s missions are carefully shaped and supported. In this episode of Further Together, Harris discusses how she wanted to watch the sausage get made from a space policy perspective.
“I thought I had a good understanding of NASA bureaucracy, but I’ve come to realize how interconnected and thorough the process really is," Harris said. "There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that ensures everything NASA shares with the community is vetted and supported.”
To learn more about the NASA Postdoctoral Program, or to apply, visit https://npp.orau.org/
“I thought I had a good understanding of NASA bureaucracy, but I’ve come to realize how interconnected and thorough the process really is," Harris said. "There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that ensures everything NASA shares with the community is vetted and supported.”
To learn more about the NASA Postdoctoral Program, or to apply, visit https://npp.orau.org/
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