Rising up in Detroit with a digital camera in her hand, Sophia Roberts — now an award-winning astrophysics science video producer—by no means imagined that sooner or later her path would wind by way of clear rooms, vacuum chambers, and even a beryllium mine. However framing the ultimate frontier generally requires touring by way of a few of Earth’s less-explored corners.
Sophia obtained her first digital camera from her father, a images fanatic, when she was simply 5 or 6 years outdated. “I’ve mainly been snapping away ever since!” she says.
With a pure curiosity and enthusiasm for science, Sophia pursued a level in biology at Oberlin School in Ohio. There, she found that she may mix her two passions.
“I typically lingered in lab periods, to not end an experiment however to {photograph} it,” Sophia says. “I had an epiphany firstly of sophistication sooner or later, which at all times opened with clips from BBC nature documentaries. I made a decision proper then that I might be one of many individuals who make these movies sooner or later.”
She initially thought that meant wildlife filmmaking—perched in a blind on a mountainside, ready hours for an animal to look. That dream led her to Montana State College, the place she discovered to mix scientific rigor with visible storytelling by way of their science and pure historical past filmmaking grasp’s program.
Whereas finishing her diploma, Sophia labored as a touring presenter for the Montana House Grant Consortium. “I used to be primarily giving shows about NASA missions and displaying children stunning photographs of house,” she says. “That was my first true introduction to NASA. I cherished having the ability to watch the youngsters’s eyes mild up once they noticed what’s on the market in house.”
Sophia then accomplished an internship on the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of Pure Historical past whereas finishing her thesis. As soon as she graduated, she landed a year-long fellowship at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland, as an Earth science information fellow. On this position, she centered on packaging up tales by way of satellite tv for pc imagery and explanations.
She leaned into her videography expertise in her subsequent position, as a part of NASA’s James Webb House Telescope workforce.
“Webb is one in all my nice loves in life,” she says. “I discovered to barter with engineers for the right shot, navigate NASA’s protocols, and work with mission companions. I solely spent 5 years on Webb, however it feels prefer it was half my life. Nonetheless—it was every thing.”
That mission took her to some unforgettable locations, like a mine in Delta, Utah, the place uncooked materials for Webb’s mirrors was unearthed. “It was this large, spiral pit the place they have been mining beryllium at simply 0.02% focus,” Sophia says. The method was as otherworldly as the placement.
She additionally documented thermal vacuum testing at NASA’s Johnson House Middle in Houston in an enormous pill-shaped chamber with a 40-foot spherical door. “I needed to take confined house coaching to crawl round within the space beneath the chamber,” she says. “It felt like spelunking.”
As soon as Webb launched, Sophia pivoted to protecting lots of NASA’s smaller astrophysics missions together with the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman House Telescope. Nowadays, she will be able to typically be discovered gowned up in a “bunny swimsuit” within the largest clear room at Goddard to doc house telescope meeting, or in a studio recording science explanations.
“I really like capturing the visible tales and serving to fill within the gaps to assist individuals perceive NASA analysis,” Sophia says. “I attempt to deal with the issues that can get individuals excited concerning the science in order that they’ll cease scrolling to search out out extra.”
For Sophia, the method is commonly as exhilarating because the end result. “I really like venturing out to distant locations the place science is being performed,” she says. “I’d like to movie a balloon launch in Antarctica sometime!”
To others who dream of pursuing an analogous profession, Sophia recommends diving in headfirst. “With cameras available and free on-line platforms, it’s by no means been simpler to get into the media,” she says. “You simply should watch out to analysis your matter and sources, ensuring you actually know what you’re sharing and perceive that science is at all times evolving as we study extra.” And Sophia emphasizes how necessary storytelling is for conveying data, particularly when it’s as complicated as astrophysics. “Finding out science is fantastic, however I additionally assume serving to individuals visualize it’s magical.”
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Md.