The First African-American Deputy Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center Keynoted the 2018 Youth Leadership Laboratory

JSC Deputy Director Vanessa E. Wyche addressed Texas’ teenage community at Prairie View A&M University.  Through Prairie View A&M University’s Cooperative Extension Program, through it’s 4-H and Youth Development unit Wyche was invited to inspire the attendees of the annual Youth Leadership Laboratory (Youth Lab).  The Youth Leadership laboratory is a pre-college outreach residential summer program for teens in 8th, 9th, and 10thgrades across the State of Texas.

Wyche is deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), a position she assumed on Aug. 8, 2018. In this role, she assists in leading an organization of nearly 10,000 civil service and contractor employees in Houston – including those at White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico – and also assists with a broad range of human spaceflight activities.

The Youth Leadership Laboratory is one of the several college access programs hosted by 4-H and Youth Development, which the College of Agriculture and Human Sciences at Prairie View A & M University PVAMU oversee. Designed to introduce young people to STEM careers in agriculture, the Youth Leadership Laboratory wanted to emphasize the engineering component. This pre-college outreach program attempted to “go where we have never gone before” by making the educational focus space science and the STEM careers related to space exploration.

To kick off Youth Leadership Laboratory, Wyche spoke to our participants about her career path that lead her to become the first African-American Deputy Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. She addressed the importance of STEM in the development of her career and her previous role as the director of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate at Johnson Space Center and encouraged the participants to consider STEM as industries to pursue college degrees and careers.

The Cooperative Extension Program’s 4-H and Youth Development Unit will celebrate National 4-H Week beginning Monday, October 8th with the College Prep 101 Workshop Series. The topic is Paying for College, which includes reviewing the FAFSA application submission process, 4-H scholarships, and researching available scholarships. To register to attend the College Prep 101 Workshop Series, please go to https://pvcahscollegeprep.eventbrite.com/.

Author:

Joaquina Scott Kankam
Extension Program Specialist II
Cooperative Extension Program,
4-H and Youth Development

 

Co-author: Maurice Perkins