Derek Horn
Welcome back to In These Uncertain Times, a podcast about creating and connecting in the midst of uncertainty. I’m your host, Derek Horn.
So normally this podcast is far from rocket science, but today that is not the case, despite what my incredibly humble guest may say.
Cj Giovingo is a Systems Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California where they’ve worked since 2014. They are currently a member of the Mars 2020 Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Systems team which just landed the Perseverance rover on the Red Planet on February 18th of this year. Prior to their current work in space technology, Cj had a career in environmental and union organizing, skills that transferred surprisingly well to being a systems engineer.
Outside of work, Cj and their wife live as Faculty in Residence on the University of Southern California campus where they serve as mentors, advisers, and advocates for the first-year students in their residential community. In July 2019, Cj joined the National Board of Directors for Out for Undergrad, a non-profit aimed at helping high-achieving LGBTQ+ undergraduates reach their full potential.
Cj and I have a truly beautiful conversation about the intertwining nature of systems and creativity, their experience with the ultimate remote work — landing a spacecraft on another planet while working from home — and the invaluable power of telling your story.
Thank you to Cj and enjoy the show!
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Welcome Cj to In These Uncertain Times. How are you doing?
Cj Giovingo
I'm doing very well. How are you?
Derek Horn
Doing well, thank you for joining. So to get started, can you please introduce yourself to listeners in your own words?
Cj Giovingo
Sure thing. Well, first of all, thank you again for having me. I'm really excited to be joining you today. So my name is Cj Giovingo. My pronouns are they them there. And I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana, a fact that I like to tell everybody, it’s the best place to be from. I currently live in Los Angeles. I work at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as a systems engineer, most recently on the Mars 2020 mission as the matrix landing team. I live at USC, as my wife and I are faculty residents. We live in first year dorm where we have a unique opportunity to mentor first year students, of course, when they were living on campus and the pre COVID times and we have a little one, just a little over two years old now, keeps us busy. And I'm also on the board of Out for Undergrad is a national nonprofit organization whose charter is to help high achieving LGBTQ+ students to reach their potential and I’m really passionate and excited to be.
Derek Horn
Awesome. So what is your involvement in journey band with the Mars 2020? team? And how has that been impacted by COVID?
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, so I started on the Mars 2020 team. In the summer of 2014, I had actually gone back to school, I did not finish my degree at the kind of traditional age I dropped out of school, had a separate career in political organizing before eventually going back to night school. And so I ended up at JPL as a 30 something year old intern on the Mars 2020 mission. And my initial role was to work on our testing plan during the early early stages of planning. I eventually joined our Entry, Descent, and Landing team, where I continued that work, we spent years testing the system with the hardware and the software. And I also helped develop and test our backup software during EDL, which is what we call Entry, Descent, and Landing. That backup software is only used during EDL we call it second chance, and it's just there in the event, something happens to our our main computer. So that's how I spent my time.
You know, the work I do as a systems engineer is very people focused. Were our jobs are to look at the whole system, and to break it down into different functions. And we work as a team across those interfaces to make sure the whole thing fits together. So you know, we depended a lot on the being at least we thought, on being in person and developing those relationships. You know, once COVID happened and almost a year ago now, we got sent home to work remotely. You know, I initially wasn't sure how that would work. You know, we are such a tight knit community and gotten know each other well. But I think that's actually what served us best in COVID, is because we spent so many years working together on this system and getting to know each other that while we've missed the in person lottery, the work itself really never missed a beat. And, you know, we had the same struggles that I think everybody else across the world has had, which is how to get, you know, WebEx and conference tools to work all the time. And yeah, so that's that was the biggest, I'd say obstacle.
Derek Horn
I think that's been the case with a lot of people where it's like, once you get all those kinks worked out with the technology of it, it's like, as long as those relationships are solid, then I think that that's what's most important for you to be able to work in this new way.
Cj Giovingo
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I like to tell people, you know, we were pretty used to working remotely because all of our spacecraft are in interplanetary space.
Derek Horn
About as remote as you can get…
Cj Giovingo
That's right. So it's really just about connecting on the human scale.
Derek Horn
So was there any moment, key moments from the past year that will remain ingrained in your memory?
Cj Giovingo
There are several, I mean, of course, you know, we are what's today, we're just shy of one month, pasts landing Perseverance on the surface of Mars, so that that was a moment that I've worked for, for close to seven years of my life. So I will certainly never forget, sitting in that control room. But we also launched Perserverance during COVID, which, you know, looked very different than what we planned on it, it was a milestone. We were all going to fly out to Florida to see the rocket launch in July, our family was going, our friends were going, our team was going. And so to do that, from you know, I was sitting in my home office in my bedroom, watching on a you know, screen, I was on conference calls with friends and with our team. And that was that was a really unique experience that I also will never forget, certainly wasn't the way we thought that was going to be.
Derek Horn
Nice. So what is this major accomplishment? And congratulations, by the way, that's so incredible. What does it mean to you any year full of news that has been anything but uplifting?
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, I think for me, it's about hope. Really, you know, we, this has been a really hard year. It's been a hard, many years just in the world. But then our work to thinking specifically about my work has also been really, really hard. And to get to celebrate a very concrete milestone, that shows that all of that hard work, and working together really did pay off makes me feel hopeful. Looking at the other really hard things that we have in front of us as a society, it makes me think, okay, we can do hard things when we come together. So that's what this gives me, is hope.
Derek Horn
That very inspiring. And I know you were spotted in some of those iconic control room shots from the day of the landing. But beyond those key moments when you're all were in the room together, what was more your day to day communication and collaboration with your team looking like?
Cj Giovingo
Yes, yes. So kind of how I alluded to before you know, I in the weeks leading up to landing I actually so like I said, I live in a in a dormitory and a residential hall. So I was fortunate that we were able to get a separate dorm down the hall from my apartment, so I can just isolate from my wife and toddler as work that busier and busier. And I know my colleagues were kind of adjusting in their homes as well, like, how do we drill down? But you know, we were we were doing the same thing we've done since last March. JPL was really great at being open with us early about we weren't going to take risks. So we we kind of knew that we were all working from home for the long run early on. So we were able to settle in and really start designing the communication says that we're going to work best for us, be it you know, certain conferencing tools are how often we were going to be meeting. We actually ended up meeting taking lots of meetings off of people's schedules so that we didn't run into that Zoom fatigue. Yeah, we were hearing so much about and we had to just work harder to to have some of that social time. We had some team yoga sessions and things like that, yeah.
Derek Horn
Nice. Is there anything you and your team have picked up that you think is like a thing that's worth keeping around for the long haul, even when we do return to hopefully some level of normalcy?
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, I mean, I do think that there's something to adding a remote element. You know, folks, we've all kind of stuff going on in our lives, and so to have the flexibility with families and distance, to have that flexibility, I think, is something that I hope we keep in a measured way, you know, I know that JPL will look at the smartest way to do that. But I do think that that we've learned a lot, and that we can actually do more than we thought we could do not being in the same room as each other.
Derek Horn
Totally. What is it been like being a parent to a young child in a year like this? I mean, on one hand, you do have the pandemic, and on the other hand, you have this massive mission that you're a part of, that's taking up so much of your time.
Cj Giovingo
Yeah. So the pandemic, I think we're really fortunate that my, my son is as young as he is, because he doesn't really know what's going on, you know, he's a really, really social kid. So that part's hard for him. But he's also young enough that like, when we're outside at a park, socially distancing, you know, you can kind of play tag with him. And he stopped noticing that he's not allowed to go by the other kids. Right. So we're, and he hasn't really noticed it noticed that masks are off, right, because he's seen us for now close to half of his life wearing masks. And when he had to start wearing masks, he just kind of didn’t blink. So I feel really fortunate that this is just probably not something that is going to really be a blip for him.
It was harder for me to be working the amount that I was working at the end being a parent, just because I in the end, there was very little flex. You know, we my wife, and I knew that we knew that going in and and we knew that a short tournament. So we prepared for that. And that's part of why I moved down the hall, at least during the daytime. So we have made a plan early for you know, we're going to stock the freezer with food, we're going to purchase all the things that he needs before so that my wife could really focus on his well-being. And I could take care of when I could and it was tough, it's tough to not be a day-to-day part of your kid's life. Even for a few months.
Derek Horn
Right. I know, you said that you were working some long hours, especially towards the end. And I mean, obviously, this past year has introduced new stresses and stuff, but what are your go to methods of self-care and have they evolved over the past year or so?
Cj Giovingo
I think my number one go to self-care is to get outside, outside and you know, I'm in LA, we're fortunate enough to be able to get to hiking trails or to get to the beach. The pandemic made that harder, right? Because that's all anybody had. And, you know, LA, we got pretty scary there for a while with the numbers we were having so even you couldn't really even get to a trail that wasn't super crowded. And so that that has been a struggle, you know, and I would say that that's still something, even outside of the pandemic that I'm working on. You know, in the early years of our mission, I was better at having some balance and that self-care, heading out for a hike, reading a book, getting a massage. But as we got closer to the end, it's not that we anyone communicated that there was no time for you to take a break. But it's not something that I've really learned. You know, once I kind of get into that hunker down mode, I'm just I get so focused that I have a hard time saying, you know, take 20 minutes, go take a walk. So that's, that's something I really learned at the end of this process, that that's something I need to keep working.
Derek Horn
Totally, I think that especially now when work is home and home is work, it's like super important to best you can is set those boundaries, but even like putting as simple as putting a half hour or hour on your calendar, whatever you can just to have that trigger to remind you, Oh, I should probably get up and do something now because it is very easy to get into this cycle where you're just sucked into your screen for hours on end. And you look up and it's like oh, the days the day is gone now.
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, yeah, especially when my office is in our bedroom. At the end of the day. You know, I didn't want to go anywhere near my bedroom. So I would be in the living room, my wife was working in the dining room, so she didn't want to be in the living room because they are together. So she and we would, we would have a hard time connecting because just we needed the separation of space from where we worked all day. You know, so that I think will be something now that we both have more time again, we're going to have to figure out how to make that work.
Derek Horn
Yeah, totally. So working with rockets and this space exploration is such a classic dream job for so many kids growing up. When did you know that this was a path that you wanted to go down and is this career what you imagined it to be?
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, so I had I had alluded to this, in the beginning, I had a circuitous path to getting to where I am now, you know, I've always watched this since I was a kid and loved space. In any fact, I knew about space I would tell it to anybody, a family who would listen. And we would also, you know, we had these from Louisiana, and we would go out in the street at night and throw rocks near the streetlights, just just close enough that they would shut the light out. Temporarily, we were breaking anything, but just enough to get the lights to go out so we could lay in the street, and then the stars. And so I've always just had this sense of wonder about what was out there.
When I got to college, the first time, I knew I loved math, I always loved math. And so I started in astronomy, and then and then astrophysics and started doing research. I enjoyed the research intellectually, but it wasn't something that was really sustained. It is sustainable. For me, I'm a, I'm a person that likes to work with people. But I didn't really, totally know that about myself at the time. And I also had a lot of stuff going on, personally, I had to work full time to get myself through college. And so I ultimately dropped out. And I went on to become a political organizer. And that's where I really got to stretch that side of myself, I got to learn how to work collaboratively, how to work on something that's bigger than myself. But I still missed that part of my team, you know. And so I eventually went back to school at night, I was working for a solar company, I was actually was an installer in a solar company, and I'd broken my hand at work. And so I was working, I had to work a desk job while I was like waiting to heal and I took a math class in college. And as soon as I sat down in that chair, I was like, I have to go back to school and I have to go back to school to do space engineering, I came home into my wife, she was like, okay, like, this is what we're doing.
Derek Horn
Zero to 100!
Cj Giovingo
And you know, zero to 100. It took me you know, several years to get it done. And I got my degree at age 33. That's when I started at JPL. And it is absolutely everything I hoped it would be you know, I found systems engineering, and that really marries that technical kind of stuff, space engineering with that political organizing side, but because it is all about working with people and solving big complex problems together, that I just love. So it's a total dream job. And every single day I pinch myself.
Derek Horn
That's awesome. Yeah, so I'm a graphic designer I work with like brands and like packaging design.
I know a lot of people think that that's probably more of a creative thing a little more, quote, unquote, artsy, but there is a lot like this element of systems and systematic thinking and definitely collaboration with my team that runs through that. And I know you’ve said several times now about how much bet collaboration those people skills are valuable are so important to your engineering work. As an engineer, do you have any moments of creativity that you think might surprise people or folks might not expect?
Cj Giovingo
Sure, yeah, absolutely. I think there's a ton of there's a ton of creativity. But I think you also it depends on how you define the work right? Like, it took me a long time to realize I was a creative person because I only thought of creativity as art, as like kind of traditional art, right? But I think creativity of thought is what really goes into you know, we have this motto at JPL called “Dare mighty things” which is all about you. We try to not do anything twice, we want to always be reaching for doing a new and different thing. And to do that right to solve problems we've never solved before you've got to come up with, we've got that, that those answers have to come from somewhere. Right, right. And so sometimes it's big, crazy ideas like the sky crane that, you know, is a basically a powered jet pack that sits on top of a rover and landed on Mars. Or sometimes it's just like, how you solve coding, right? There's creativity in those small moments, too.
Derek Horn
I love that I it's, it's funny because I, I'm somebody that didn't love math in school growing up, I was okay at science. But I definitely, I think from a relatively early age leaned into this more creative side. And that's one thing that has surprised me is how I need to be more analytical in my job with more professional branding. But I really love how, in just hearing you talk about that and kind of those lines that I think that are very traditionally set up are kind of blurred together and really interesting ways because you really can't have one without the other.
Cj Giovingo
No. And actually, there was this kind of this, this conversation is reminding me of a time earlier in the mission, where we had an act like we did have a graphic designer who was working with the team, it was in the early stages of designing how we were going to operate. I'm not a surface engineer. So this is going to be a very high level handy description. So I apologize to my surface colleagues, if I'm butchering it, but you know, we were on our mission, we need to operate the rover in a quicker timeframe than we have in the past and get more things done and get more science accomplished in in a more efficient manner.
And so we have this graphic designer work on the team to help do the storyboarding. So that as the engineers were like, okay, here's all here's the ways that we need to, you know, develop sequences to go to the spacecraft, but first we need to talk to the scientists, then we have to do this, we have this designer who was like, Okay, let me put this narrative up on the board. And this is, this is what this is, and it was so incredible, right? And he had this visual representation of what we all had swimming around in our brains. And so I, you know, JPL I think, does a really great job, they do have a wonderful design department at JPL. Not just to get our message across, but also to really help the work get done. And that was the first time I'd ever really gotten to see that action. And it was awesome.
Derek Horn
That's awesome. So you and I both know each other from our work with Out for Undergrad, which is, as you said at the top, a nonprofit dedicated to help LGBTQ+ undergrads reach their full potential. I've been a volunteer director for a few years, and you're a member on the board. What does it mean to you to be such a visible role model for these young people? And what role do you think they'll play in building a better future for all of us?
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, this, this has been one of the greatest honors that I've had to get to work on this board. And I feel like I'm just getting started, you know, I think this is two years. And I feel like I'm only just finding my feet. You know, when I was in college the first time, you know, I faced a lot of discrimination and so on, and discrimination in my thesis advisor. And I didn't have that kind of outreach, or outlet outreach, I didn't have the outlet. And I really could have used me and said, Hey, we see something in you. Let me help you find a way even even just to connect you to different people, or even just the one of my favorite things about O4U is just putting a lot of people in a room together, right? Or in a virtual room these days, which is just such a powerful thing. Because getting to see other people who look like you or are passionate about the same things you are or maybe struggling with the same things you are, that's just such an incredible thing to be seen. It's about being seen.
And to have the opportunity to give that back to young people now I feel just so grateful to get to be a part of this organization. Because I do think, you know, we're this a different world. I went to college, you know, the first time 20-ish years ago. And, you know, it's a different world that we live in. And so then to be able to see what these young students the opportunities that they have to, to take up the space that they deserve to see, to take up to bring their whole selves to the table. I just think That's going to help us live in the world that we want to live in. That gives me a lot of hope.
Derek Horn
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I would say. So I started volunteering for O4U, actually, the year after I graduated, I wish I knew about it as a student. But I really do think that, like you were saying, putting all these queer people in a room together, it sounds so simple. But especially for some of these students, please go to schools, where they don't have huge queer populations, or at least visible ones, it really is that that component of it is so life changing and inspiring even for me. And I would say, like I graduated six years ago now. Um, even in that time, there's been so much that has changed. And I think that I really find it's such a joy and privilege to be able to connect with and learn from students as well. And I think that they definitely helped me make me a better person. And I really think it is this kind of cycle of, yes, we were giving our volunteer hours to them, but I feel just as equally changed by them.
Cj Giovingo
Oh, I'd 100% agree. I'm definitely changed by by knowing and meeting, not just the students, but the, you know, the organizing staff that we have, yourself included. It's an incredible interchange that’s a very, very special.
Derek Horn
Totally. So tell me about a misconception that people have about your work or people like you and what are they getting wrong?
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, I really appreciated this question. Actually, you know, I think there are people here what I do, and so I would never call myself a rocket scientist, I will just say that to you now. But that is what folks call us. And, and I think there's a perception about this, this line of work that is very inaccessible, and that you are only a certain amount of smart or to be able to do it, I think that's just absolutely not true.
You know, it takes a lot of different types of people doing a lot of different types of work to make this happen. And I actually believe that the strength of our organization comes from the diversity of people and paths that we have representative at JPL, you know, my path is one of them. You know, I didn't, I didn't go to a fancy engineering school, straight to grad school, straight to JPL, you know, and, and part of what has made me a good engineer is all of those different experiences along the way. And I wouldn't consider myself any smarter than any other person. But I think because of, you know, what I what has happened in my life. And what I've decided to dedicate myself to is, is what helped me to get to where I am. So that's one of the things that I that I, one of the misconceptions I think I have about this, because when you really get a chance to sit and talk to people one on one and kind of talk about you, then folks like oh, okay, like, I can wrap my brain around that. And so yeah, so that's I really like to do outreach with middle schools. And for that reason, just to, like, get down because, and talk about this on their level. And they're, they understand way more, which is awesome. The best age group to start.
Derek Horn
I love that. Yeah, I have to say, I mean, even to be honest to the first, I think a lot of my previous guests have been kind of more in the traditional creative fields more kind of in the world that I operate in. So my interview with you is of one of the first times I've starting to break out of that that bubble a little bit more into more of this science sector. And I have to say that thinking about this work, it does feel very grand and it is impressive. And but I think that that is that's really great to hear you talk about it and this this way that is maybe not so out of reach for folks. And I think hopefully that will inspire people to really take seriously Oh, this is something I want to do. How can I do it? How can I make it happen versus people selling themselves short right out of the gate and not even going for it?
Cj Giovingo
There's so many different roles, like you know, yeah, like, like we mentioned today, right? Like there's designers, there's coders, there's mechanical engineers, there's administrators, there's technicians, right, like there's a whole gambit of fields that go into building a spacecraft. So, you know, kind of don't just have to be a person cranking out special models or anything to play a role, which is also cool.
Derek Horn
I don't know if you can give any sort of blanket advice for all of those roles. But do you have any advice for people who are thinking, hey, this sounds pretty cool. This might be something I want to do.
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's kind of two bits of advice I typically give people the first is, find out what you're passionate about. You know, that's it, this is where you're going to be spending a lot of your time. You know, so you might as well love what you do. And, and I really do believe that when you love what you do, then you will be better at what you do. Because your dedication, your interest, your curiosity, will be organic. I mean, Work is work, right, like, you know, we're not on vacation. But, but I do think having a passion and an interest in what you do. And so I'd say like, try to find that as early as you can, and also be okay with that changing, you know, it's okay to have a wide range of passion, it's okay to have a disparate amount of passions that don't seem to work together.
You know, I was talking to an intern just last week, who is majoring in engineering, and also in dance. And, but like, those really fit together for her, and she, each of them feeds the other, right. And so I think, like, just because it doesn't look right on paper, doesn't mean it isn't what works for you. So that's my first piece of advice.
My second is to learn to tell your story. And this is something that is a lesson I learned later in life. And I had a really wonderful mentor that helped me learn this. But learning to tell your story, I think is your greatest asset, right? You know, you're going out into the world. And especially if we're talking about, you know, right now I'm thinking of students getting into careers, but we're going out into the world, people are already kind of expecting the standard stuff, right? Like, okay, you would have taken physics you would have taken math, like, okay, like, I could look at your GPA, but like, so was everybody else, right? Like, what makes you different? And not like, not just, Hey, I did all these internships. But who are you here? Because that really is, I think what brings you know, to bring it back to what I said before, that diversity of thought, right, in order for us to do things we've never done before to solve problems that are big and take so many people, we need each person to bring their unique lived experience and perspective to the table. And so when you learn to tell that story of who you are and what you bring that's that I think the greatest asset you can have.
Derek Horn
Totally, yeah, I love that advice. I think that goes for any and every career. That's one of the things I like telling young people and be it at O4U or interns that I work with in my day job, is that I think that, especially when they're in school, about to graduate, or just graduated, there is this impulse to like, Okay, I gotta go get my job, I got to figure everything out. And it's like, your first job is not going to be your last job.
Cj Giovingo
That's right. That's right.
Derek Horn
And even your first few jobs might be or not be where you ultimately end up. And it's like, yeah, I think there is to an extent you have to kind of trust your gut and follow what feels right. But yeah, I think even even situations that don't end up out work working out. Well. It's like, there's always something you can learn, always something you can take away, and I think even just knowing Hey, this isn't for me, that's one kind of box, you can check for yourself.
Cj Giovingo
Yeah, talking about failure is just as important, you know, or maybe it's a failure, but it didn't work. You know, I'd had this kind of crafted, vague statement around dropping out of college for years, as I wound my way through my 20s. And my resume looked like I might have done a degree but, you know, but I did write and I had this really big story. And when I got to JPL, my mentor during my internship was like, I know your story. And I think you should tell it, because I think it shows more about you than you think.
And sure enough, and JPL interviews are really, you know, long, so I had to give this whole presentation and it's in the room full of like eight or 10 people in the room and I prepared this, you know, PowerPoint deck 30 minutes of everything I've learned in my internship and who am I, what have I done before I got here? And why should you hire this former organizer turned solar installer turn, you know, like, what the heck am I doing here? And the person in the room who was running the interview at the end of all of that was like, Okay, why did you drop out of college? What was that about?
You know, and I, and I sat there for a second. And I took a deep breath, and I heard my mentor, and I was like, okay, like, this is a chance for me to tell my story in an appropriate way. You know, I was struggling, a bit discriminated against, and I needed to go to full scope, you know, in a lot of tension between going to school full time and working full time. And, you know, I couldn't do it all anymore, you have to make a choice. And so I did, and, and I told them that, and I told them what I did about it though, right? Because I can then complete the story and say, Well, this is what I wrote down that process. And it was awesome. I mean, I got the job. So you know, must have worked. The first time I just kind of stopped and said, Okay, I’m gonna tell the whole thing. Yeah, you know, I didn't get into every single detail, but it did make a difference. And that was a real turning point for me and how I thought about mice. And like, because up until then I'd really thought about that time. As a failure, as like it I wasn't smart enough or strong enough to hack it during that really tough time. And that learning to tell that story for myself, made me think of that time, and realized how hard I did work and what I did over a period. So it was a valuable, valuable lesson.
Derek Horn
Totally. Yeah. And even at O4U, that's one of the things we really encourage our students to get into is this idea of authenticity. And that means 1000 different things to 1000 different people. But I think that there is so much value in understanding who you are, and like you said, being able to tell that story, when and where appropriate. Because I think that that's something that is it's just such a visceral thing that when you're connecting with people, it's like you can tell when somebody is being authentic, versus kind of closed off or less authentic. And I think that that just goes that that helps us connect more is when you show that vulnerability and start to help other people see who you really are. That's really great. Well, starting to wrap things up. One day, hopefully, this challenging pandemic will be behind us. When you imagine that day, what are you most hopeful for?
Cj Giovingo
You know, I’ve been feeling kind of idealistic lately. You know, just as perhaps because of the landing, I've just been thinking so much about what we do, what we can accomplish when we do it together. You know, and our country is really facing some massive challenges. And and I think the way through it is together, and I hope that we come out of this period, realizing all the ways in which we are connected to one another. From getting through this pandemic, we are dependent on not just what we do for our own safety and our family safety, we're dependent on each other. It is it's a social contract that we're dependent on. And the same is true for, you know, the social justice issues, it’s the same lessons. And so I do hope that that's really what I hope we can collectively take away is we're not in this alone, and the only way we’re going to get through this is when we lean into each other.
Derek Horn
Very, very well said. So thank you so much for your time in joining today. If listeners wants to find you online or find out more about your work, where can they head?
Cj Giovingo
Yes. First of all, thank you for having me, I was really, really excited to get an opportunity to chat with you today. I don't have a huge online presence, I will tell you that. But two easy ways to see what I'm up to. Our JPL Mars website has a Meet than Martians page, so you can find my bio there. And as I move on to the next mission, which is still to be determined, you'll be able to find that it's there. And you can also find me on Cj Giovingo.
Derek Horn
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And I hope to talk to you again soon!
Cj Giovingo
Thanks so much again, it's wonderful to talk to you.
Derek Horn
Bye, bye.