Episode 02: Lika Guhathakurta - Space Visionary

A conversation about the evolution of an international visionary for space science.

Hello listeners and welcome to another episode of the Origins podcast. I’m here this evening in the heart of Washington DC where Madhulika Guhathakurta, or Lika, has kindly joined me to talk about her awe-inspiring life. 

Lika is a NASA astrophysicist and program scientist for the STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) mission and lead scientist on NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) initiative. Illustrative though these titles are, they do not even scratch the surface of the accomplishment in Lika’s trajectory. She is a true visionary and someone who continually pushes the bounds of the ’traditional’ by thinking exponentially and then actually realizing that potential. 

Lika and I first met four years and over that time she has been a close mentor to me and someone that I now consider a dear friend. I find her to be a deeply inspiring person, so it is with the deepest delight that I am able to talk with her this evening and to share the discussion with you.

Show Notes:

STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) mission: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html

• Living With a Star Program: https://lws.gsfc.nasa.gov/

• Jack Eddy: https://aas.org/obituaries/john-allen-eddy-1931-2009

  • The Jack Eddy Fellowship: https://cpaess.ucar.edu/heliophysics/jack-eddy

• What is Heliophysics? (4:45 & 38:00) https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics

  • What is a magnetosphere? (41:45) 

    • https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-areas/magnetosphere-ionosphere

  • What is an ionosphere? (41:45)  

    • http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/ionosphere.html

  • What is space weather?  

    • https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena

    • My own TED talk on space weather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOVHUo_qbgc

• Book by Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen (7:50): The Argumentative Indian (https://www.amazon.com/Argumentative-Indian-Writings-History-Identity/dp/031242602X) 

• NASA Frontier Development Laboratory Artificial Intelligence Program (15:00 & 35:05): https://frontierdevelopmentlab.org/

• Astrophysics (22:30): https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics

• Lika spoke the following words (24:30): "Once you can talk and relate, nothing else matters.” There is a wonderful TED talk that everyone should listen to on 10 ways to have a better conversation by Celeste Headlee (https://www.ted.com/talks/celeste_headlee_10_ways_to_have_a_better_conversation/discussion) 

• Lopchu Tea - “The single malt of tea" (29:20): https://www.quora.com/What-is-Lopchu-tea

• NCAR - The National Center for Atmospheric Research (33:30): https://ncar.ucar.edu/

• HAO - The High Altitude Observatory (35:30): https://www2.hao.ucar.edu/

• The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (36:30): https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/

• The Parker Solar Probe Mission (42:40): https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe

• LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Solar Physics (43:00): http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/

• Tagore philosopher and Nobel Laureate in literature (46:21):  

  • https://www.scots-tagore.org/philosophy

  • https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Rabindranath_Tagore

  • Gitanjali (Song Offerings) book (47:00): https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gitanjali-Song-Offerings

• Lika talks much about the importance of philosophy. For a wonderful podcast on philosophy check out “Philosophize This!”