She is in her twenties and from Bloomington, Minnesota. She graduated from Creighton in 2017 and she probably doesn’t fit your stereotype of the typical NASA employee.
“The best part is walking into the room where they are waiting for the NASA scientist, and I’m thinking ‘oh, this’ll be good,’” Courtney Batterson said.
Batterson is an assistant research scientist with the Mars Climate Modeling Center at NASA Ames in Silicon Valley, California. She started her internship the summer before her senior year at Creighton, and was offered a contract before graduation to continue her work with Martian Secular Climate Change.
In addition to research, Batterson uses her position to encourage women and everyday people to continue on the path to STEM careers, and to apply for jobs that may seem out of reach.
“You can physically see that I’m very young, I’m a girl, I’m small. There’s nothing really super impressive about how I look right off the bat, so if I’m just a normal person working at NASA, then you can do it, too,” said Batterson.
Batterson herself never expected that NASA would be a relevant place for her passion for meteorology.
“I really like to get my face out there, because I think a big problem with NASA is that it seems like a black box,” Batterson said.
“NASA seems like a big entity and you don’t quite know what’s in it, and then you hear all these crazy ideas coming from inside and don’t know where they’re coming from.”
She has an Instagram and a blog, both under the name “That Girl at NASA,” that she uses to share her story with other women pursuing STEM careers. Batterson also speaks to children at local schools through NASA’s Speakers Bureau.
“There’s so many more women interested now, so they see themselves in me and that’s awesome,” she said.
Ever since she was little, Batterson had hoped to study atmospheric science and become a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. The weather captured her attention at a young age.
“I was fascinated by the intensity of it and that we have no control over the weather—that it could be so violent and dangerous or it could just fit in our lives,” Batterson said.
When the time came to look for colleges, Batterson looked at those with Atmospheric Science programs, specifically with Accredited Meteorology Programs. Creighton made the list, but the program was cancelled during Batterson’s freshman year due to a lack of interest and better use of funding.
She fought for the program, but when it was cancelled, she modified the Environmental Science major to fit her needs, exchanging the electives for math and atmospheric science classes.
Susan and George Haddix, people Batterson had known personally through her college employment, made a $10 million donation to the College of Arts and Sciences in 2017 that “hit home” after Batterson’s experience with lack of funding in a science program.
“It’s people like that, who are really looking, thinking, and then doing something, women especially, who are doing something about what they see,” said Batterson.
As Batterson prepares for graduate school, she emphasizes the important of support for STEM education at universities. She encourages Creighton students to reach for opportunities that may seem to be out of reach and to “make a name for yourself by being bold and speaking up.”