Public Affairs

The Center for Research in Informatics, Sciences and Engineering (RISE) at the American University of Kuwait, in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, hosted a lecture entitled, "Dare to do Mighty Things: Hitting the Road on Mars" by Zainab "Nagin" Ahmed Cox, a graduate of Cornell University and the United States Air Force Institute of Technology. After serving as a US Air Force Officer, Ms. Cox went on to serve as a systems engineer and manager on multiple interplanetary robotic missions, culminating in her current role as a systems engineer and the tactical uplink lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Beginning with welcoming remarks and a short video showing the 2012 landing of the Mars Rover Curiosity on the Martian surface, the lecture discussed a variety of topics ranging from the importance of teamwork in modern space exploration to the finer points of landing some of humanity's most complex machines 54.6 million kilometers away from Earth. Ms. Cox easily walked the audience through the history of NASA's four Mars rovers, including the three of which she had been involved with, and paid special attention to the most recent mission-Curiosity, and the next mission which will take place in 2020. She discussed the purpose of Curiosity in depth, focusing on the specifics of soil analysis, drilling, the search for water, and, of course, taking breathtaking pictures. The final technical part of her lecture was devoted to the 2020 rover, whose mission this time is specifically to search for signs of past life on Mars.

Ms. Cox also discussed the rigors of working for NASA, demonstrating the challenges of what it means to "...live on one planet but work on another". This includes 100-hour work weeks leading up to Curiosity's landing, to working shifts on "Mars Time" for the first 90 days after the successful touchdown. Her descriptions of the trials and rewards of working in space exploration gave the audience an inside look into the human side of the technology-heavy field, and the videos and pictures she shared of colleagues celebrating the success of all their hard work were a testament to the close bonds formed in extreme work environments. In noting that space exploration is more significantly an active, international and committed effort to serve a common goal, she said, "I see no borders; I see no nations; I see one planet." Towards the end of the lecture, she called on the audience to do exactly what the title of her lecture demanded: to not fear challenge, to always push boundaries, and to believe that the hard things in life are worth doing, even if they require great sacrifice, assuring, "I can tell you that after 25 years, the thrill does not go away."

Dr. Amir Zeid, Director of the RISE Center, said, "The speaker walked the audience through the history of NASA's four Mars rovers, giving the audience the opportunity to hear about the most recent mission-Curiosity from an expert who has worked on it firsthand. Nagine's extraordinary experiences as an engineer and scientist demonstrated to the attendees that in order to have an extraordinary life you must dare to do mighty things."