Work hard, achieve young: Millennial innovator Anna Wilhelm makes small changes with big impacts
2015-08-24
“To see opportunity where none have seen before.” This is the motto of a true innovator.
An innovator makes change for the better, even if it sometimes doesn’t work. Often, it takes only a small change to make a great impact. The constant desire to improve drives changes that make a workplace thrive. Anna Wilhelm is one such innovator that made small changes with big impacts. For her, the desire to make changes, particularly in spaceflight, started from a young age.
In third grade, Wilhelm started learning about the planets and the solar system in a session called the “space series.” She was fascinated with the idea of exploring the unknown and learning about cosmic objects. Suddenly something clicked, and she passionately wanted to work in the space industry.
In college, she pursued an undergraduate degree in math and Spanish.
“I love the perfection of math, how it makes sense and all comes together in the end,” Wilhelm said.
Toward the end of college, Wilhelm really started thinking about what kind of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) career suited her.
“I knew I wanted to do something with people,” Wilhelm said, always keeping her dream of space in mind. She decided that after graduation she would pursue a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. “It was the perfect unison of something that was both technical and people-oriented. Once I learned afterward that NASA needs biomedical engineers, I was thrilled. Now I was able to fit space into this field that I loved.”
While working toward her master’s degree, Wilhelm was able to secure a summer internship at Johnson Space Center working in the Human Research Program (HRP). She developed curricula and outreach activities as part of the education component of HRP.
When she returned to JSC the following summer, she worked with program integration component of HRP, opening her understanding of NASA and learning how groups worked together from a top-level perspective. From here she landed a full-time position at JSC in the same program. Within a year, she had moved to the operations side to support the Biomedical Engineer (BME) console.
“I was drawn to the fast-paced work, the interactions with people and the thrill of the dynamic nature of operations,” Wilhelm said. She recalled a time when the treadmill broke on the International Space Station in the middle of the night. “I just got this huge spurt of energy. I sought to gather as much information as I could, communicate with my team and work together to solve the problem—as efficiently and effectively for the crew as possible. Some days are crazy. It’s exciting, but it’s a day that really tests your knowledge and training.”
As an innovative young professional, Wilhelm is driven to find opportunities to improve, both in herself and in her work.
Her BME team uses SharePoint as a tool for communicating actions and notifications that needed to be accomplished.
“There were already some fantastic tools existing, but sometimes the tasks built up and we were far behind,” Wilhelm explained. She saw an opportunity for improvement and found a way to streamline actions and notifications for her team. “Now the system has all the information in one database to simultaneously notify people, getting the information out there and send actions to resolve the problems.” Her team is now able to find issues and resolve them faster than ever.
The BME team also uses a tool called the Crew Health Care System (CHeCS) hardware catalog, which contains information about the dozens of BME hardware on the International Space Station.
“It was a massive Word document,” Wilhelm described. “It was only updated once a year and took a huge workload, so it was notoriously out of date.” Wilhelm explained how her team members were collecting knowledge with no good way to record and capture it in the catalog.
When working with the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) team, she noticed the wiki system they were using was so fluid. Wilhelm asked herself, Why aren’t we using this? and found a way to apply the same concepts to the CHeCS hardware catalog. That innovation helped the catalog be more adaptive to change, more up to date, more usable and, ultimately, more beneficial.
Wilhelm loves working in spaceflight: the goals, the missions and the stories. For her, it is truly a dream come true. In the future, she hopes to continue to support the #JourneyToMars in different ways and contribute to NASA’s overall mission.
Innovation can come from individuals with great ideas, but it can spark through collaborative efforts. It is not restricted to a single generation, either. The Emerge Employee Resource Group seeks to recognize and understand differences among generations in order to learn how to work together more efficiently and effectively as part of August’s Innovations through Generations. Come out to see author, TEDx speaker and millennial expert Kelly Williams Brown on Aug. 25 as she discusses ways to improve workplace communication among generations.
Gary Jordan
NASA Johnson Space Center
An innovator makes change for the better, even if it sometimes doesn’t work. Often, it takes only a small change to make a great impact. The constant desire to improve drives changes that make a workplace thrive. Anna Wilhelm is one such innovator that made small changes with big impacts. For her, the desire to make changes, particularly in spaceflight, started from a young age.
In third grade, Wilhelm started learning about the planets and the solar system in a session called the “space series.” She was fascinated with the idea of exploring the unknown and learning about cosmic objects. Suddenly something clicked, and she passionately wanted to work in the space industry.
In college, she pursued an undergraduate degree in math and Spanish.
“I love the perfection of math, how it makes sense and all comes together in the end,” Wilhelm said.
Toward the end of college, Wilhelm really started thinking about what kind of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) career suited her.
“I knew I wanted to do something with people,” Wilhelm said, always keeping her dream of space in mind. She decided that after graduation she would pursue a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. “It was the perfect unison of something that was both technical and people-oriented. Once I learned afterward that NASA needs biomedical engineers, I was thrilled. Now I was able to fit space into this field that I loved.”
While working toward her master’s degree, Wilhelm was able to secure a summer internship at Johnson Space Center working in the Human Research Program (HRP). She developed curricula and outreach activities as part of the education component of HRP.
When she returned to JSC the following summer, she worked with program integration component of HRP, opening her understanding of NASA and learning how groups worked together from a top-level perspective. From here she landed a full-time position at JSC in the same program. Within a year, she had moved to the operations side to support the Biomedical Engineer (BME) console.
“I was drawn to the fast-paced work, the interactions with people and the thrill of the dynamic nature of operations,” Wilhelm said. She recalled a time when the treadmill broke on the International Space Station in the middle of the night. “I just got this huge spurt of energy. I sought to gather as much information as I could, communicate with my team and work together to solve the problem—as efficiently and effectively for the crew as possible. Some days are crazy. It’s exciting, but it’s a day that really tests your knowledge and training.”
As an innovative young professional, Wilhelm is driven to find opportunities to improve, both in herself and in her work.
Her BME team uses SharePoint as a tool for communicating actions and notifications that needed to be accomplished.
“There were already some fantastic tools existing, but sometimes the tasks built up and we were far behind,” Wilhelm explained. She saw an opportunity for improvement and found a way to streamline actions and notifications for her team. “Now the system has all the information in one database to simultaneously notify people, getting the information out there and send actions to resolve the problems.” Her team is now able to find issues and resolve them faster than ever.
The BME team also uses a tool called the Crew Health Care System (CHeCS) hardware catalog, which contains information about the dozens of BME hardware on the International Space Station.
“It was a massive Word document,” Wilhelm described. “It was only updated once a year and took a huge workload, so it was notoriously out of date.” Wilhelm explained how her team members were collecting knowledge with no good way to record and capture it in the catalog.
When working with the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) team, she noticed the wiki system they were using was so fluid. Wilhelm asked herself, Why aren’t we using this? and found a way to apply the same concepts to the CHeCS hardware catalog. That innovation helped the catalog be more adaptive to change, more up to date, more usable and, ultimately, more beneficial.
Wilhelm loves working in spaceflight: the goals, the missions and the stories. For her, it is truly a dream come true. In the future, she hopes to continue to support the #JourneyToMars in different ways and contribute to NASA’s overall mission.
Innovation can come from individuals with great ideas, but it can spark through collaborative efforts. It is not restricted to a single generation, either. The Emerge Employee Resource Group seeks to recognize and understand differences among generations in order to learn how to work together more efficiently and effectively as part of August’s Innovations through Generations. Come out to see author, TEDx speaker and millennial expert Kelly Williams Brown on Aug. 25 as she discusses ways to improve workplace communication among generations.
Gary Jordan
NASA Johnson Space Center