Stacy Shutts: A passion for peace, preservation and lasting change
2016-02-18
Stacy Shutts traveled up and down the western hemisphere before landing in Houston as Johnson Space Center’s new sustainability champion, and she’s happy with her new home. Before coming to Houston, Shutts worked in Paraguay as an environmental conservation volunteer for the Peace Corps. After her two years of service, she moved 7,000 miles north to Juneau, Alaska. There, Shutts performed fieldwork and logistics management for the Southeast Alaska Land Trust. The way she sees it, there are opportunities everywhere to preserve the environment and sustain the resources people depend on.
Shutts dreamed of joining the Peace Corps since high school, when she built trails with the Student Conservation Association outside Johnson City, Tennessee. Working in the soil and sun and reading “Mutant Message Down Under” on lunch breaks, Shutts imagined the people who identify their livelihoods with productivity of the land. That was the canvas that inspired Shutts’ future studies and work. Creating lasting sustainable change, the Peace Corps’ top goal, is something that resonated deeply within her.
She was assigned to Paraguay, South America, where her first project was working with farmers to incorporate nitrogen-fixing plants into fields as an alternative to expensive, and often misused, chemical fertilizers. She built vermiculture (a worm compost) and other composting systems to improve food production and waste management.
In the second year of her Peace Corps service, with a grant from the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas, three tubular biodigesters were installed in her community. Biodigesters work by converting organic material into usable methane gas for cooking, which provides an alternative fuel source to wood. This can improve the health of residents by reducing indoor air pollution from wood fires. In addition, Paraguay has the highest rate of deforestation in the world, so reducing the need for firewood has a major ecological benefit.
“People often trucked wood in,” Shutts said. “Woods are further and more fragmented each year.”
Not everyone was convinced, however. Shutts spent a significant amount of time learning about the technology and introducing it to neighborhood committees to find people interested in trying this unfamiliar technology.
“It’s vital to make sure you find the right people with the interest and work ethic who are willing to see the project through,” Shutts said. “Not every project will work for every place.”
Troubleshooting stubborn biodigesters in a low-technology area had its own share of difficulties, like searching for and delivering a freshly butchered cow’s stomach to prime a balky biodigester with the proper anaerobic microbes. For Shutts, it was valuable experience in learning to manage expectations as the project went through growing pains.
After completing her tour with the Peace Corps, Shutts took that same passion for sustainability to Alaska. She identified macroinvertebrates and seaweeds as part of the Southeast Alaska Land Trust’s wetland assessment protocol. By identifying thousands of characteristics in threatened wetland ecosystems, the trust can locate similar ecosystems to preserve.
Shutts applied to NASA through the Peace Corps’ Noncompetitive Eligibility Program, which is a way to connect returning volunteers with government agencies who need their expertise.
Shutts recalled the day she got a call from NASA. She told Joel Walker, director of Center Operations at JSC, that she was having dinner on a rare visit with her father, and asked if they could speak later. After putting the phone down, she told her father, “I think I just hung up on NASA!”
Luckily, there were further interviews, and Walker offered her a position on his staff.
“It’s a dream,” Shutts said of her new job. The sustainability program at NASA fascinates her, especially after studying biodiversity and regenerative natural cycles. Drawing on the parallels between space and ground, her goal is to help JSC transform its Earth-based infrastructure into its own regenerative environment.
Shutts notes that sustainability is not limited to environmental issues. It’s also connected to economics and the social well-being of people. Seeing firsthand the conflict between these competing priorities in Paraguay and Alaska has given her insight into the economic, social and political influences at work around the world.
The Peace Corps taught her to look beyond the obvious.
“Sometimes it takes an unconventional approach to find a workable solution, and it may not be the first or easiest or most politic one,” Shutts said, but she isn’t one to shy away from unusual solutions to difficult problems.
When thinking about the future for a sustainable JSC, Shutts draws on her Peace Corps experience.
“You have to honor the unknown and the concept of learning,” Shutts said. “JSC has to be one of the best places to tackle these sorts of problems. The people here are literally thinking outside of this world. It’s a great place to be inspired to be your best.”
Michelle Fraser-Page
NASA Johnson Space Center
Shutts dreamed of joining the Peace Corps since high school, when she built trails with the Student Conservation Association outside Johnson City, Tennessee. Working in the soil and sun and reading “Mutant Message Down Under” on lunch breaks, Shutts imagined the people who identify their livelihoods with productivity of the land. That was the canvas that inspired Shutts’ future studies and work. Creating lasting sustainable change, the Peace Corps’ top goal, is something that resonated deeply within her.
She was assigned to Paraguay, South America, where her first project was working with farmers to incorporate nitrogen-fixing plants into fields as an alternative to expensive, and often misused, chemical fertilizers. She built vermiculture (a worm compost) and other composting systems to improve food production and waste management.
In the second year of her Peace Corps service, with a grant from the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas, three tubular biodigesters were installed in her community. Biodigesters work by converting organic material into usable methane gas for cooking, which provides an alternative fuel source to wood. This can improve the health of residents by reducing indoor air pollution from wood fires. In addition, Paraguay has the highest rate of deforestation in the world, so reducing the need for firewood has a major ecological benefit.
“People often trucked wood in,” Shutts said. “Woods are further and more fragmented each year.”
Not everyone was convinced, however. Shutts spent a significant amount of time learning about the technology and introducing it to neighborhood committees to find people interested in trying this unfamiliar technology.
“It’s vital to make sure you find the right people with the interest and work ethic who are willing to see the project through,” Shutts said. “Not every project will work for every place.”
Troubleshooting stubborn biodigesters in a low-technology area had its own share of difficulties, like searching for and delivering a freshly butchered cow’s stomach to prime a balky biodigester with the proper anaerobic microbes. For Shutts, it was valuable experience in learning to manage expectations as the project went through growing pains.
After completing her tour with the Peace Corps, Shutts took that same passion for sustainability to Alaska. She identified macroinvertebrates and seaweeds as part of the Southeast Alaska Land Trust’s wetland assessment protocol. By identifying thousands of characteristics in threatened wetland ecosystems, the trust can locate similar ecosystems to preserve.
Shutts applied to NASA through the Peace Corps’ Noncompetitive Eligibility Program, which is a way to connect returning volunteers with government agencies who need their expertise.
Shutts recalled the day she got a call from NASA. She told Joel Walker, director of Center Operations at JSC, that she was having dinner on a rare visit with her father, and asked if they could speak later. After putting the phone down, she told her father, “I think I just hung up on NASA!”
Luckily, there were further interviews, and Walker offered her a position on his staff.
“It’s a dream,” Shutts said of her new job. The sustainability program at NASA fascinates her, especially after studying biodiversity and regenerative natural cycles. Drawing on the parallels between space and ground, her goal is to help JSC transform its Earth-based infrastructure into its own regenerative environment.
Shutts notes that sustainability is not limited to environmental issues. It’s also connected to economics and the social well-being of people. Seeing firsthand the conflict between these competing priorities in Paraguay and Alaska has given her insight into the economic, social and political influences at work around the world.
The Peace Corps taught her to look beyond the obvious.
“Sometimes it takes an unconventional approach to find a workable solution, and it may not be the first or easiest or most politic one,” Shutts said, but she isn’t one to shy away from unusual solutions to difficult problems.
When thinking about the future for a sustainable JSC, Shutts draws on her Peace Corps experience.
“You have to honor the unknown and the concept of learning,” Shutts said. “JSC has to be one of the best places to tackle these sorts of problems. The people here are literally thinking outside of this world. It’s a great place to be inspired to be your best.”
Michelle Fraser-Page
NASA Johnson Space Center