Last day in DC.. I woke early and walked a mile to the BETA office on New Jersey Ave. BETA has an office here for showing our stuff to various government and non-government agencies.  It’s a great space. It has a full Alia simulator and a good group of other assets for telling our story. It looked like a small chunk of Vermont down here in DC
  Jill was my host..and she is amazing. In addition to working at Beta she flys giant C17 Globemaster planes for the Air Guard.    She told me about how they make handle  visits from everything from US Senators to 4th graders. We took the standup meeting together which was fun. Jill also let me put a Samstone on top of their charge cube

From there I ubered over to the NAS building to hear a panel talk about the coming Energy Transition. They had NAE reps from solar, wind, fission, fusion , petrochemical, grid.. there are many NAE studies goign on now about the conversion to sustainable power necessary to meet the worlds 1.5 degree heating target. It’s an unbelievably huge problem. It was good to know how many folks in the room are working either directly or indirectly on energy transition. Im glad  to be part of an organization who’s entire mission is focused on decarbonizing air shipping.  After those talks, we moved to the 2nd NAS building for section meetings. I’m in Section 7, which is Electronics, Communication and Information Systems Engineering. We’re one of the larger groups in the NAE. Our meeting focused on  how we plan to elect a more diverse group of new members. 

 

About 3/4 the way through the meeting I got a text message from United that our flight has been delayed due to weather and we would not make a connection home. I quickly texted ‘Diane and started working on alternatives. We rest of the airport and long story short were able to make it home by midnight… Exciting into an exciting weekend

Nite all, nite sam

-me

Today was my official induction into the NAE.. the other two classes were first which gave Diane and I time to walk over and visit the very moving Museum of African American History. It is a beautiful building which is laid out to take the visitor from the basement of the building where you saw early days before large scale slavery in the west up through the slave trade, the unbelievably cruel times of slavery .. and the hard times african americans have had since slavery..  and the huge gains they’ve made since.. Much of it was hard to see.. much of it was inspiring. It was very well done and very. very moving to me. 

 

It was raining on our way back to the hotel.. but it was still great to walk. we stopped at a great Mexican food truck and visited the WWII memorial. We were completely soaked, but happy.  Before the museum visit. We even ran into my good friend Heike from Zurich who  was also elected to the NAE. 

 

We got back to the hotel took hot showers to warm up and dressed for the formal induction. We got on a bus back tot he NAE building and got to see everyoen in my entering class introduced and welcomed to the NAE. It was so cool to see all the different people, their varied disciplines and ther accomplishments. Two of the group had been the engineers behind the roll out of the Pfiser and the Moderna covid vaccines.. they got huge applause. The two most famous inductees of the year.. elon musk and satya nadella did not attend.

Here’s me getting my certificate.. 

The rest of the afternoon there were some  great talks and plenty of time to meet the other NAE members.. I really enjoyed it 

After the NAE day.. we headed back to see our friends Caroline. Matthew, Anna and Kate for thai food.. Matt’s cousin Connor was there too which was a really nice surprise !

Super fun day !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Today began my first annual meeting for the National Academy of Engineering  (NAE). I am soooo excited to be part of this organization. The NAE brings together senior researchers from all disciplines of engineering from  academia and from industry. I know quite a few people who are in this group and really look forward to using membership as a way of getting some things done which are important to me particularly around STEAM  promotion.  
‘Diane and I prepared for the day by taking a run in the drizzle down to the national mall.… Things were pretty empty but it was still cool seeing all of that huge buildings of the Smithsonian.

We made our way to the national Academy building and sat in on some meetings about how the Academy runs and what the Academy is doing about getting more diverse membership. Today’s program was for the last three inducted classes 2020, 2021, in 2022. Neither of the previous two years have been able to meet in person because of Covid. So we were a pretty large group. There was plenty of time to mingle and meet the other new inductance. That was pretty exciting.

Later that night we all met up at the national building museum for a formal welcome dinner for our classes. It was a fun venue because the last time I was in the national building museum I was there doing a science show for 1000 kids as part of national engineering week… that must’ve been in the late 1990s.

Tonight’s event was really fun. There must’ve been about 900 people there. That included the new inductees,  their significant others, and a group of senior people from the Academy who were there to welcome us. The place was decorated really nicely everybody was all dressed up… Most in Tuxes  (but not me)… And it was fancy fun drinks… In a very sciencey theme. It was really great getting to see everyone and meet their partners.… We sat at a table with two new inductees one from UCLA with his daughter, a couple from Rice University and my old friend José with his granddaughter. It was really nice being there with your day and his family but we continue to bump into all weekend. They were really fun !

It was a really fun evening. I’m going to like being part of this group !
nite all, nite sam

-me