Alumnus Matt Hancher promotes passion and hard work

Matt+Hancher+talked+to+students+about+his+work+at+Google+and+NASA%2C+and+answered+various+questions.

Nitya Thakkar

Matt Hancher talked to students about his work at Google and NASA, and answered various questions.

All SPA students aspire to achieve great things, and it is always comforting to hear from successful SPA alums about their lives. On Friday, September 8th, during tutorial, SPA alumnus Matt Hancher came to SPA to talk to students about his work as an engineer for NASA and Google.

Hancher currently directs Google’s Earth Engine project. He joined Google in 2009 after working at NASA for 5 years.

“While working on moon and space issues at NASA was really cool, I thought our more pressing issues could be found right here on Earth. That was one factor that contributed to me leaving NASA for Google. The other reason was that NASA is a federal institution, and I felt that working for a bureaucracy wasn’t for me,” Hancher said.

However, Hancher wanted to make it clear to students that every job has its pros and cons, and if you love a job enough then you will be able to look past its cons: “Engineers are really good at spotting problems, but that can also make it really easy for me to forget how privileged I am to have worked at NASA and Google and for all the work I’m doing.”

“At the end of the day, they’re just jobs. Normal people work at normal jobs and these jobs are totally attainable. Anyone of you could get a job working at NASA if you really want to and put in the effort,” Hancher said.

Hancher believes that working with Google to figure out and respond to changes in the environment and climate around the world is more important and interesting.

“We work on tools that make it easier for scientists to understand what is happening in the world by taking advantage of the vast wealth of data that is collected and turning it into information that people can use in various fields ranging from deforestation to agriculture to public health,” Hancher said.

One surprising piece of information he provided the students with was the role of insurance in his work: “Climate change causes things to change, so people insure their crops for examp

We want to see students who are passionate about what they do.

— Matt Hancher

le, but then insurance companies look to us to determine how to help people make sure they can cultivate their crops even as the environment changes.”

Finally, Hancher provided some advice to students regardless of what field they might choose to pursue jobs in.

“Now that I’m working in industry and hiring younger students, I see a trend in what kind of students we end up hiring. We want to see students who are passionate about what they do. Even if they ended up getting a degree in the wrong thing for the job they’re applying for but have done a lot of projects in an informal context, we value that more than students who’ve gotten the right degree from the right college and having checked all the boxes but haven’t shown any passion in the field,” Hancher said.

The main takeaway from Hancher’s talk: be passionate about whatever you do, because as long as you put in the effort you can achieve almost anything you want.