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One of my favorite memories

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as a kid was just these beautiful, very,
very dark nights.

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It's amazing to be able

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to see the Milky Way,
but also be able to see faint aurora

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as a dance across the sky
and things like that.

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I remember as a teenager
sitting with friends and looking up

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at the dark sky and asking yourself
the question of what's out there.

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It's just such a big, wide
open space for exploration.

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Hi, my name is Joe Westlake
and I'm the director

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for the Heliophysics Division at NASA.

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I think the biggest thing to be excited
about in my new

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role is working
with the wonderful Heliophysics team.

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That vibrant community really enables
so many amazing things

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and I'm really excited
to be able to engage with

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all these people that are just so
energetic about the

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science that we're doing.

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Heliophysics
as a discipline is blossoming.

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We're in a position
now where there are so many missions,

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so many instruments, so many technologies
that are coming out of Heliophysics

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right now

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and NASA in general,
that we need to be able to support

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our people so that they can be excited
to come to work every day

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so they can be a part of these impactful
missions.

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Throughout my career,
especially when I was an undergraduate

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and as a graduate student, my mentors
have been the people that I rely on.

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I spend a lot of time working closely
with people who have lots of experience

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in the field. And in the end, that path,
that journey that I took was not linear.

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It's one of these,
you know, random walks to figure out

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what I liked,
what I wanted to do, what inspired me.

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And that's something that I think,
you know, the entire community finds.

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You find yourself going from mission
to mission, or going from topic to topic

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and figuring out what excites you,
what lights a spark, what

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what do you enjoy,
and what gives you that sense of inquiry.

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The sense of,
you know, newness and excitement.

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I had an opportunity to be a

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part of the Heliophysics
community first in the MMS mission.

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In that time I was an instrument
scientist, so I took great

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care in understanding how the instrument

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performed. Producing quality data sets,
producing things that the community

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could actually do
the science that needs to be done

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and producing the products
that needed to get done in order

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for scientists to ask the questions.

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And so as part of that MMS experience,
I was able to take instrumentation

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from when it was on the ground,

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to when it was placed on the spacecraft,
to when it was in space and be able

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to understand the data that came from it
and turn it into scientific results.

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That experience
and that - that time that I spent,

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you know, carefully looking after
what was in the instrument,

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gave me the background
to understand instruments in general,

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but also to understand how instruments
interface with spacecraft,

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understand how science drives
what we do in heliophysics,

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and that gave me the experience

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that I needed to be the project
scientist for IMAP.

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That’s a mission that's
asking really big unanswered questions.

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What is our place
within the local space environment?

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What's our solar home look like?

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What's the neighborhood? That experience
from MMS and the experience of being able

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to, you know, be a part of an instrument,
being part of a team in that way

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gave me what I needed to
be in a leadership role

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and to be able to lead
a group of scientists, to be able to lead

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a group of engineers,
and really a large multidimensional team.

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So when I think about how we as a team
can work together,

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I think it's important

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for us to understand
the human side of science. That underpins

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and is at the core of us being able
to work together as researchers.

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We really have to be compassionate
for each other. Compassionate

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for everyone who makes up our teams.

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And I think that being able to be there

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for the people that are working on
all of these amazing products,

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all these amazing, you know, NASA
missions is one of my central roles.

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I'm going to work very hard
to be there for everyone in the community

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and to really ensure
that people have the support

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and the things that they need
to be successful as heliophysicists.

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Our impact

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on society, on everyday
life is known and it's big.

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So we're at a point now where we,
we as heliophysics just need to start

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asking really big questions.
What are we going to do?

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What is this team going to do?

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What questions are we going to ask?

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What does our future look like?

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I want that vision to be our shared
vision as heliophysicists.

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I want to be able to be there
and try and ensure

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that everybody who's a part of the team
feels valued and feels to be engaged

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and included within our community.

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Being impactful as a researcher,
having high quality scientific results,

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being impactful as an engineer,
having the amazing technology

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that comes out of our NASA
missions is why we do this.

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And if you think of our scientific
understanding

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as being raised up
by each of these individuals knowledge,

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and each piece of that diverse
community comes together

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to build this sort of beautiful picture
that we need to develop for the world.

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It's a huge impact that that team has.

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Every person alone has a piece of that,

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and no one person alone
can make the entire picture.

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Let me try and bridge
these different places and figure out ways

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to enable our teams, to enable
our heliophysicists to do great work.

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Let's do awesome stuff.