Meet Professor Danielle Wood, a Trailblazer in MIT’s AeroAstro Department
Wood dedicates her interstellar research toward helping those who need it most down on Earth
It was 1999, and Danielle Wood faced a problem all too familiar to 17-year-olds across the United States: she could not decide what her college major was going to be.
“I was planning to study architecture and work mostly on designing houses that survived hurricanes,” Wood ’05, SM ’08, PhD ’12 recalled. Before she could commit herself to home construction, though, a fateful opportunity arose that changed the trajectory of her life.
Wood was offered an internship at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and she fell in love with every aspect of the experience. “The people I met at NASA were so happy to go to work,” Wood reminisced. “I thought, ‘Why are they so happy? I think I want whatever they’re happy about.’”
After a summer of working alongside engineers, witnessing rocket launches firsthand, and meeting people on the brink of making history, Wood’s mind was set: she was going to become an aerospace engineer.
From Memorial Drive to the Media Lab (and back)
Professor Wood’s journey at MIT started the year after that pivotal NASA internship. From the moment she settled into McCormick Hall as a first-year undergraduate, she knew that she would pursue a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering.
What she was not yet aware of, as she later admitted, was how much she would have to adjust to the rigor of MIT. “It’s so important to be ready for failure,” Wood said. She explained that, as is the case for many incoming MIT students, she had rarely ever been embarrassed about her academics. That was soon no longer the case for her, especially after she failed her first test.
In retrospect, this was one of Wood’s most important learning experiences at MIT. “At every new step going forward, there was embarrassment, failure, or other forms of disappointment, but I felt supported,” Wood said, appreciating the friends, colleagues, and faculty who encouraged her at every step of the way.
Learning how to fail gave Wood the perseverance to accomplish notable feats as an undergraduate. Despite various setbacks, she secured additional internships with NASA across the country, and even received funding from the space agency to pursue her Engineering Systems PhD at MIT after graduating with her bachelor’s degree.
After completing her graduate education in 2012, Wood went to work for NASA and John Hopkins University full-time, winning awards such as the Modern Day Technology Leader Award. “I was having fun, [but] I was just like, ‘I think I want to go back to [MIT]. I think I’ll have even more fun there,’” Wood said.
Yet, as much as she yearned to return to the Institute, Wood soon learned that work at MIT was as challenging as it was when she was an undergraduate. “I failed,” she admitted, “meaning I tried to get a faculty job that year, and I applied to some places, I got some interviews, and everybody said no.”
Six years and 60 rejections later, Wood made the decision to apply to MIT’s Media Lab. This time, however, she came with a novel proposal: making MIT’s research more international.
“The weird ideas I had about how we should work on space with African leaders seemed to be interesting to them, and they gave me an opportunity,” Wood recounted.
Wood went on to officially become a (Joint) Associate Professor in Media Arts and Sciences and in Aeronautics and Astronautics, integrating her work in the Media Lab’s graduate arts and sciences program with her classes in the AeroAstro department.
Four years ago, Wood’s story with MIT came full circle. As Maseeh Hall’s Associate Head of House, Professor Wood returned to Memorial Drive and moved in right next door to where she spent her years as an MIT undergraduate.
Outside the classroom
Of course, Professor Wood never forgot the proposal that brought her back to MIT in the first place.
Collaborating with foreign leaders has become a key part of Wood’s work, so much so that joining international Zoom meetings has become a part of her morning routine. The projects they discuss, which involve both MIT and collaborators worldwide, use satellites to make a significant impact on the lives of people in need.
One of her current projects, for example, focuses on mapping deforestation in the homeland of the native Yurok tribe in California. “We’re working with them to use both plane-based and space-based data to map their trees,” Wood explained.
She also mentioned her recent work in Puerto Rico, including her team’s work to “improve the relatively novel passive radar data from satellites to estimate wind speeds during hurricanes.”
As internationally active as she is, Professor Wood was determined to make a necessary impact here at MIT. “People might think that MIT is actually all engineering; it’s not,” she stated. “We have so many socially oriented topics.” Wood noted how there are majors available in geographical area studies focused on regions around the world, such as Latin American, Asian, and Eurasian Studies.
From the perspective of a professor at MIT, Wood felt like there was something missing. “I was concerned because there was a minor for African Afro-Diaspora Studies [and] Indigenous Studies,” Wood said, “but not a major.” After consulting other humanities professors and her students, Wood became the newest head of the African and African Diaspora Studies Department. Professor Wood has succeeded in raising awareness of her department by giving MIT students the opportunity to pursue a major, minor, or concentration in the field.
Professor Danielle Wood has come a long way since her first NASA internship, as her persistence and dedication throughout the years have allowed her interstellar research to help those who need it most down on Earth. Throughout all of it, she maintains that one of her most important skills she can teach her students today is “being able to fail and then come back and try again.”