David Oh ’87 Named 2021 Outstanding Alum of the Year

This story appeared in the Fall 2021 issue of Indian Springs Magazine.

David Oh '87 is a principal systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has worked on missions to the asteroid belt, the moon, Mars, and beyond. Claire Edwards '89, chair of the Outstanding Alum of the Year Committee, asked David about his career and ongoing connections to Indian Springs.  

A: I was good at math and science, so after I left Indian Springs in 1987, I went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) thinking I would be a physicist or scientist and discovered that what I really loved was engineering. I got my Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, specializing in plasma thrusters (a form of electric propulsion). I also picked up a bachelor’s degree in music and met my wife, Bryn, in the music program at MIT. After nine years in Boston, I went to Silicon Valley to work on communication satellites before moving to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California in 2003. 

Since then, I’ve worked at JPL as a systems engineer (an engineer responsible for making sure all the different parts of the spacecraft work together correctly). It’s fascinating, multidisciplinary work that’s both an art and a science. The work is inherently technical, inherently collaborative, always challenging, and it’s incredibly fulfilling when you get to see something you helped create leave the planet and fly into the unknown. Today, I’m a project systems engineering manager, and I lead a team of systems engineers building one of NASA’s deep space exploration missions, “Psyche: Journey to a Metal World.”

And along the way, Bryn and I had three kids, two of whom are now in college. We learned that raising a family is also inherently challenging, collaborative, and incredibly fulfilling in its own unique way.

  A: At JPL, I’ve been able to work on a whole series of fascinating spacecraft exploring the solar system. I worked on the initial proposal for the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission that mapped the gravity of the moon. I then spent seven years working on the Curiosity Mars Rover, first as the lead engineer for the rover’s “heartbeat” functions (its computer, communications, power, and thermal systems) and then as the lead flight director for cruise (flying) and surface (roving) operations. 

One of the most fun parts of that mission was living on “Mars Time.” When a spacecraft lands on Mars, the operations team syncs up to the Martian day, which is 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. This means that after we landed, we were getting up 40 minutes later every day, such that after two weeks, we were eating lunch at midnight. Bryn and I synced up our whole family, including the kids, to live on Mars Time for a month, and it was a blast! It proved to be an excellent opportunity for us to include the kids in the adventure of exploring another planet. 

After Curiosity, I went to work on Psyche, a mission to explore the largest metal asteroid in the solar system. I joined the team early as the mission’s lead systems engineer and system architect, and ever since, I’ve been leading a team of engineers working on getting the spacecraft ready for launch in August 2022. It’s a remarkable mission with a remarkable team, and it’s a blessing to get to work on it.

A: Let’s start by talking about the past. Many don’t realize how much space technology has already revolutionized our world. Every time we listen to a weather report, watch TV, listen to the news, or find our location on our smartphone, we use information provided by satellites in space! Most of us use spacecraft multiple times a day without even realizing it. Space technology is everywhere; it’s what makes today’s globally connected world possible.  

Space technology is evolving and will change the world even more in the future. A new and exciting era of space travel is coming, led by commercial companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, that are creating reusable rockets that will bring down the cost of launches by factors of 5 or 10. These inexpensive launchers are revolutionizing the space industry by making spaceflight affordable. Not only will this bring new commercial applications like high-speed internet to the world, but it will enable NASA to fly more challenging and exciting missions to the farthest reaches of the solar system. This looks to be one of the most exciting times for space travel in my career, and I hope it will bring a new age of robotic and human space exploration, led by American industry and the American space program. 

A: It’s impossible to name all the many ways the education and the life experiences I received at Indian Springs have shaped me personally and professionally. Being a boarding student for two years was truly invaluable. It taught me independence and brought life experiences that left me ready for the challenges of college when I got there. It’s no coincidence that my wife also went to boarding school; it’s an area of shared experience that brought us together.

Academically, Dr. Mac LaCasse’s physics and calculus classes were, of course, key to my success in college. I still tell my kids not to “fall off the physics bus.” Also, Dr. Bob Cooper taught about “knowledge for the sake of knowledge” and “learning for the sake of learning.” That passion for learning drives space exploration, and it turns out that the key to understanding complex systems is always asking, “why does it work like that?” Some tiny thing you learn today often unexpectedly turns out to be the key to solving some incredibly complex problem tomorrow. 

By the way, as I get older, I appreciate more and more the superb quality of the foreign language program at Indian Springs. I took five years of French at Indian Springs, and years later, I was still able to interact effectively with my fellow engineers in France. In retrospect, that’s quite an achievement.

A: Living on the West Coast, it often feels like I’m a long way from Indian Springs. But back in 2009, the then director of Indian Springs, Gareth Vaughn, came out to visit alumni in Los Angeles, and I was able to give him a tour of JPL. We went together to see the Curiosity rover, which was being built on Earth and is now exploring Mars. And in 2019, my daughter, still in high school, came home to tell us a choir from Alabama would be visiting later that week. That turned out to be the Indian Springs School concert choir on its California tour, which, by total coincidence, had chosen to do a choral workshop with our local high school. I was able to meet the director, the students, and the accompanying parents and alumni. It was a fantastic opportunity to hear the excellent school choir.

There is one Springs alum, Vernon Chaplin '03, who works at JPL in (of all things) the electric propulsion group. It was a small world indeed when two rocket scientists sat down at lunch and realized we went to the same high school in Alabama.

I haven’t had a chance to meet with any of Indian Spring’s “Hollywood” alumni yet; maybe I’ll get to hang out with some of them soon.

A: Be Curious. Be ferociously curious. Look at the world around you and ask lots of questions. Dig deep and take the time to find out why things are the way they are. Then strive to combine your talents with what you learn to make the world a better place.

Innovate. One of JPL’s unofficial mottos is “dare mighty things,” Big accomplishments—be they doing something which has never been done before or changing the status quo—require taking big risks. Don’t be afraid to try new things, and don’t be afraid to fail. Learning from both your failures and your successes is what will let them propel you forward rather than pull you back.  

Collaborate. Learn how to work in teams. Learn how to be a contributor, communicate, and lead people striving to accomplish a common goal. Learn how to build inclusive teams where one person’s weakness is another person’s strength, and everyone is comfortable contributing their best. Our diversity is our strength, and it’s by working with others that we solve big problems—from climate change to social change to flying to Mars.