Ann Harch:  

Gosh, how do you summarize 31 years in a few sentences. After graduating HS I started out at UC Irvine in Engineering and then finished my bachelor's at UCLA eventually in geology (on the 7-year plan). I miraculously, and sort of accidentally, got a job at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena doing sequence design work for planetary missions (Voyager, Galileo) -- a sequencer is someone who builds the command sequences that operate the spacecraft, instruments and pointing during the flybys or encounters. After 10 years I moved to upstate NY (Ithaca) to live with and ultimately marry my husband (an astronomer here at Cornell). We were together for 14 years before we finally got married 2 years ago. I was lucky enough to able to keep working in the space business on some fun NASA comet and asteroid missions since being here in New York. I mostly work remotely through a place called the Applied Physics Lab in Maryland. Currently I'm working on a mission to Pluto called New Horizons, and also one to Mercury called MESSENGER. My husband tells people I'm employed at both ends of the solar system. I seem to be taking telecommuting to new limits! :) I have two step kids in their late 20s but none of my own. The past 3 decades were punctuated with some serious bouts o...Expand for more