WEBVTT

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[Music]

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In my job, I get to help make data from
the TEMPO instrument publicly available and I

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also get to make it usable for young people. My
name is Erica Wright and I help make pollution data

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something we can all understand. TEMPO stands for
Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution.

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TEMPO is a satellite instrument funded by NASA.
Because it sits in what's called a geostationary

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orbit it moves right with the Earth, kind of our
selfie stick standing out there and it measures

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on an hourly basis. That means it can scan from
East Coast to West Coast every hour giving us

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a much more complete picture of what's happening
in our air quality. I'm currently working with the

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Cosmic Data Stories team to help build a special
interface to help folks understand the nitrogen

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dioxide data coming from the TEMPO instrument
and allow you to ask those questions with the

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data and compare from city to city what's going
on in your backyard. I think it's really important

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for all of us to understand our air quality. It
impacts us both in our own health but also

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in the world and community around us and helping
young people who have their very own important

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questions about air quality have access is so
critical to our future. I've always loved the

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environment myself. I'm lucky enough that I get
to help make that data accessible to others. When

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I was younger, I really thought I wanted to be a
doctor, and then when I was at college I realized

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maybe that wasn't quite exactly what was right for
me. I was a Biology major and I was lucky enough

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one summer to lead some science summer camps for
younger kids, and that ability to help young people

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explore their own passion for science was such
an inspiring moment for me that I then went on

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to work in science museums for a period, including
the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum and then

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luckily enough found this amazing job where I get
to connect both my love for inspiring others

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and real scientific work and engaging with real
data together. I love the challenge of thinking

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about how we can make this data accessible.
It's so complicated. TEMPO is actually

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terabytes worth of data and there's so
many different types of it and so to be able to

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ask your own questions when you're just learning
about air quality is really complicated. And so I

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love thinking about how those interfaces work
so that somebody just dipping their toe in and

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asking their first question won't be overwhelmed.
So I'm building data interfaces that'll allow

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you to ask your very own questions of this data
and actually look for your own answers.

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[Music]