CPET Seminar by Robert Hanna (JPL)

Teaching Strategically for Organizational and Individual Advancement in National Labs and Research Careers

National research labs, along with their scientists and engineers, face multiple challenges as they grow and evolve. Personal goals, organizational objectives, and best laid plans are all subject to the forces of change. In all of this challenge, change, and chaos—especially when there's so much research to do—why take the time to teach?

It turns out that teaching can provide a powerful individual advantage and an integral organizational tool in research environments like national labs. Especially as they advance, scientists and engineers are constantly called upon to create curricula to teach their peers, helping them remain on the cutting edge. With examples of teaching embedded in research settings, from JPL and elsewhere, this talk will discuss the unique benefits of being a lifelong teacher and how teaching can be used to advance your principles and ideals, as well as your research career.

About the Speaker: Rob Hanna

Robert "Rob" Hanna works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the Engineering and Science Directorate as the lead for training and employee development for an organization of over 4200 scientists and engineers. In addition, Mr. Hanna is a lecturer for the University of Hawaii, teaching in the MBA program of the Shidler Graduate School of Business, including the Global MBA program for international executives located at two campuses in Vietnam.

One highlight of Mr. Hanna's career was when he managed the $28 million Mission Operations and Navigation Toolkit Environment (MONTE) software project, used for the first time by the Phoenix mission to Mars in 2008. The MONTE software has since been used to design missions and navigate spacecraft by NASA, as well as by organizations around the globe. Today, MONTE is considered the international gold standard for deep space navigation.

Mr. Hanna received his MBA with honors from the University of Southern California (USC) and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology. He has received numerous awards for his work, including NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal, one of the agency's highest individual honors.