Second in a series
Re “Getting to Know Steve Levin”
[Editor’s Note: Steve Levin, rocket scientist, officially will launch his School Board campaign on Saturday afternoon, 10733 Ranch Rd., Culver Crest. See http://levinforschoolboard.com]
[img]1993|right|Steve Levin||no_popup[/img]Project scientist for Juno, a spacecraft on its way to Jupiter.
As soon as School Board candidate Steve Levin framed what he calls his day job that way, so yawningly matter-of-factly, the vision filling his visitor’s easily distracted head was of streams of strangely shaped rockets shooting into a star-glutted night-time sky amidst echoing intergalactic sounds.
Maybe? Or not?
Not often do you perch across the lunch table at Roll ‘n Rye from a rocket scientist.
What talent does the 54-year-old Mr. Levin bring to the specific task of “trying to get the scientists and the engineers to understand each other and to solve problems together”?
“What we like to say on the project is that I translate science to engineering and engineering to science,” he said.
“We have this big project, the spacecraft that is on its way to Jupiter, I have been on it since it was an idea. I have a lot of decisions to make, a lot of things to do that involve thinking and people working together.
The Why of His Work
“Most of what gets built is designed and done by engineers. And there are managers for the projects. But the reason we are doing it is for science. For those reasons, it is important that engineers and managers understand the science and that scientists understand the engineering and the managing so that we can come to the right decision.
“I am right in the middle of that,” said Mr. Levin of JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “That is mostly what a project scientist does.
“Basically, I represent the interests of the scientists on a day-to-day basis. I am the person in the room who understands the science that we are trying to do most of the time.
“When the science team says ‘we want to do such-and-such,’ I go to the engineering team and talk to them about it. If they have concerns – ‘If you do this, I am worried about the safety of that piece of hardware’ – typically, I am the person who explains that to the science team or says ‘This is what they are trying to accomplish, and if you use this measurement, that probably will work.’
“A lot of people are working on this part-time. Someone has to be right in the middle of everything, someone who understands enough of the science viewpoint to make everything come out the right way, and someone who understands enough of the engineering and management viewpoint to work with the scientists. Mostly, that is me.”
(To be continued)
