South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, United States
I was ‘That kid’ in class. I was extremely loud. I was extremely eager. And I had way too many questions. Physics was a field that was generally perceived as hard, and I thought I might as well try it. Physics was hard for me, so I stayed. It’s very titillating – the frustration and tedium and the difficulty are all there and occupy a greater percentage of your time than the success. But the success is so deeply satisfying, it’s a drug. I need to fill my smug factor, to do something new. I need to feel like what I’m doing is challenging. I like doing things that people haven’t seen before and doing things that people haven’t done. The thing I like about working on DUNE is that it’s an exercise in being better. The scope of everything we’re doing requires us to figure out how to be even better than the experts. The problems I have solved have led into new and interesting problems. Each step is exciting and interesting. They’re all part of the same big picture.