Cathy Sybert Olkin

Class of 1984
Aerospace
Planetary scientist, Southwest Research Institute
"New Horizons" mission to Pluto

As a planetary scientist, Cathy Sybert Olkin, ’84, has taken the Cranbrook Schools motto of “aim high” to its most awe-inspiring conclusion.

Earlier this year, Olkin was part of NASA’s New Horizons mission that captured images of one of the most distant and primitive objects in our solar system. The snowman shaped mass, dubbed Ultima Thule, is providing a glimpse into the ways in which our planets may have been formed billions of years ago.

Olkin has called this mission the “most exciting project” of her career so far. Launched in 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft, which Olkin helped to develop, was NASA’s first mission to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. "Pluto was just a point of light before we sent a spacecraft there and we couldn’t see any surface details,” she says. New Horizons provided extraordinarily clear images of Pluto in July 2015, allowing scientists to see its glacial ices and the active processes that were taking place despite the object’s great distance from the sun.

Exploring always has been part of Olkin’s character. She first came to Kingswood in the eighth grade, in search of intellectual challenge. “I was bored at my middle school,” she recalls. “I ended up at Kingswood and it was a great transition for me.”

She remembers clearly a moment in 8th grade math class when her teacher was explaining quadratic equations. “I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Olkin says. On her own, she started writing out more challenging equations. Noticing that Olkin’s attention had wandered, her teacher came over to her desk. Olkin’s first thought was that she was in trouble, but she was happily surprised when the teacher did not scold her but in fact asked to hear more about the reasoning behind her work.

“At Kingswood, I could be interested, curious and engaged,” Olkin says. Although she was always intellectually engaged in science and math, Olkin says she appreciated the chances Cranbrook gave her to explore other interests whether they were cross country running, student government or Russian literature. “I had an opportunity at Cranbrook to try all sorts of different interests to see what worked for me. I got to explore and experiment.”

After graduating from Cranbrook, Olkin earned her bachelor’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in the same field from Stanford University. She returned to MIT for her doctorate in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.

Currently, Olkin is a member of NASA’s Lucy Mission, helping to design a spacecraft and scientific instruments that will travel to the asteroids that share an orbit with Jupiter. This work, she says, “will tell us how the solar system formed and evolved. No spacecraft has investigated these asteroids. We’ll be the first to get photos and information.”
These opportunities to see into the depths of space and explore what has never been encountered by humankind before continue to drive Olkin’s work. At the same time, though, she has dedicated herself to aiding and mentoring students and up-and-coming scientists.

For a decade, Olkin has mentored local FIRST robotics teams for middle and high school students as well as working with the Greenhouse Scholars program in Colorado, which helps first generation college students thrive in their new academic environments. In addition, she has served as a mentor for MIT’s Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, a professional development initiative that helps sophomores prepare for their careers. This work, alongside her efforts to mentor up-and-coming colleagues, stands as some of the most fulfilling aspects of her career.

It has been rewarding, too, to see the growing number of women joining the field of planetary science. “The diversity of viewpoints makes our analysis better,” she says. “Bringing their experiences to the table strengthens what we do.”

The beauty of planetary science and the extraordinary ability to explore the solar system and spaces continue to inspire Olkin each day. She recalls a night in Senegal when she and other scientists took telescopes out into vast empty fields to search the skies together. It was one of the most beautiful sights she has seen, underscoring what it is that continues to motivate her career as a scientist. “Observing other planets tells us about our own place in the galaxy and the universe,” she says. “It connects us to our own world around us. It’s science that helps us do that.”
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