Dr Delwyn Moller worked her way from small town rural Waikato to “geek heaven” at Nasa. Now she’s returned to head a space science centre in Central Otago.
Dr Delwyn Moller carries a corner reflector into the San Juan Mountains, Colorado, for radar calibration during a Nasa airborne snow measurement campaign. Photo: Delwyn Moller
She comes from a high-achieving family; her sister Lorraine Moller is an Olympic medal winning athlete.
“I never had the sense of limitations,” Moller says. “If you wanted something you just worked hard and, maybe like running a marathon, you just put your head down and you keep moving forward.
“You have disappointments along the way but perseverance counts for a lot.”
Moller is the newly-appointed director of research at the Centre for Space Science Technology (CCST) in Alexandra. Set up in May last year, it’s among the first of the regional research institutes to be established.
Its charter is to carry out earth science, research and observations that must be relevant to, and in the interests of, New Zealand.
“That’s extraordinarily broad, but it’s also extraordinarily exciting because it leads to a lot of possibilities.”
As a radar engineer in California she worked on remote sensing systems to map the planet, tracking anything from ocean currents to soil erosion.
She designed the radar system being used in Nasa’s Oceans Melting Greenland mission to measure changes in Greenland’s ice sheets.
She is also a qualified helicopter pilot, volunteer paramedic and trains in Brazilian jiu jitsu. “I call myself a serial obsessionist - I’ll have something I just throw myself into for a number of years and the next thing comes along.”
From Putararu High School, and unsure what she wanted to do, Moller says she “fell into” engineering at Auckland University.
“It wasn’t until we started building things and making stuff work – so it stopped being a paper project – that it became fun for me.”
She began a Masters after receiving a scholarship for women in engineering: “Otherwise I didn’t know if I would have done that.” Another scholarship allowed her to take up PhD study on earth science and remote sensing in the United States. That in turn paved the way for a job at Nasa.
“My first job was to work on a space shuttle mission, so it was geek heaven.”
She found Nasa and its “extremely smart” people intimidating, at first.
“I got a good piece of advice when I was floundering … just start working, don’t worry about what anyone else is doing, just do your best and keep working.”
Moller worked on radar systems used in a Nasa project tracking changes in Greenland’s ice sheet. Photo: Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Moller discovered a talent for working with different groups.
“I’m an engineer but I’ve ended up becoming someone who works with the scientists …across quite a number of realms in order to figure out what would provide pertinent information or measurements for them to help them do their job better.".
She went on to work at the company Remote Sensing Solutions in California. The radar technology Moller has spent her career working on has applications to disaster response, risk and damage assessment, and the impact of sea level rise on coastlines.
Her first step at CCST is to set out a research agenda, after figuring out what’s already being done and where the gaps are. She wants to partner with Crown Research Institutes, not compete.
It’s no disadvantage being based in Alexandra, far from a university or main centre, she says
“As long as we can get the communications and get the big data, then we can work from anywhere.”
Nor is returning to New Zealand a huge adjustment. “I’m very happy to bring my kids back here to go to school and experience what a Kiwi life is like.”
Sensing slips: a Kiwi innovation in landslide detection
Knowing where and when a landslide will occur is currently more of an art than a science, but a Wellington research team is figuring out how cheap GPS sensors could help predict them. Audio
NASA and Hubble scientist Jennifer Wiseman
Dr Jennifer Wiseman is a NASA astrophysicist and senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. She's considered one of America's thought leaders on science policy. She is also Christian… Audio
Sophie Hunt: exotic mosquito explosion
New Zealand could become home to exotic disease-carrying mosquitoes because of climate change and urbanisation. Insect scientist Sophie Hunt's work demonstrates how easily such species could establish… Audio
