MIT’s Only Four-Time Academic All-America Honoree and Her Superpower

Louise Jandura ’84, SM ’86 started her relationship with softball on the sidelines. 

“I was at our local field and a classmate was playing. I was sitting with my mom and my friend’s mom and I was talking about the game and how it should happen and what the players should do,” Jandura recalls. “And her mom looked at me and said, ‘why aren’t you playing?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, I guess I should.’”

This kicked off a lifelong love of sports, leading Jandura to MIT in the 80s where she played softball (shortstop), basketball (forward), and field hockey (sweeper/defense)—working her way up to captain and, eventually, coach. Jandura did so well on her teams and in the classroom that she became MIT’s only four-time Academic All-America honoree and was inducted into the All-America Hall of Fame in 2019. Meanwhile, off the field, she has been hitting it out of the park at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the past 35 years. 

“I’ve always been figuring things out and working with my hands in a variety of scenarios—my sister and I helping my dad while he’s fixing a car, doing crafts with my mom,” says Jandura. “There’s that same strong thread through my education at MIT in mechanical engineering, and then at JPL, where I’ve applied that to building spacecraft and rovers and things that explore the universe.”

Jandura earned her degrees (both a bachelor’s and master’s in mechanical engineering) when women made up only about 25 percent of the MIT student body. But playing three sports a year gave her a wonderful community, so she never felt alone. 

Striving in the classroom and on the field also energized Jandura, revealing a special ability to focus strictly on a given task. On game days, she was invested in her sport and didn’t worry about her academics. When it came time to study, she could put everything else out of her mind—a superpower that proved invaluable. 

The ability to compartmentalize has come in handy throughout her career at JPL. She worked her way through the ranks over the years, doing deep dives on specific aspects of missions—like developing payload canister mechanisms for the Genesis mission to collect solar winds, and part of the lander for the Mars exploration rovers of the early 2000s—until she became the chief engineer for the sampling and caching system on Mars 2020. Jandura led a team of 160 people and collaborated with other departments to create the Perseverance rover and make it capable of performing its mission on the surface of Mars.

“There’s obviously a difference between leading 11 people on a field through a season versus the scale of leading 160 people in a multi-year complicated technical challenge,” says Jandura, who believes her coaching helped prepare her for leadership at work. “But some of the things are similar—you step on a field, you compete, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, you assess, you do it again on a cadence. I don’t think it’s the only way for people to arrive at that skillset, but for me, it really helped a lot.”

She has since become chief engineer of the Mechanical Systems Engineering, Fabrication and Test Division, a position that allows her to consult on various mechanical projects throughout JPL. 

Despite her growing responsibilities, Jandura can still activate her superpower and disconnect from work—she says that sports and hobbies are what help her thrive in all areas of life. These days, she has even added a few new activities—including mentoring high school robotics clubs, gardening, and mastering the complicated patterns of quilting. 

“I say quilting is not so much different than engineering,” Jandura jokes. “There’s just better color choices.”

Jandura spoke at MIT Softball’s 40th anniversary celebration where she imparted some wisdom that she believes applies to the challenges that life throws in any arena. 

“I said I was most importantly proud that they chose to compete, in the classroom and on the field. Because in life that is really the only thing that we get to do. We get to choose to be there,” she says. “That takes courage. You don’t know the outcome. All you can do is be in the moment and do it to the best of your ability every day.”

Photo (top): Louise Jandura and her colleague, Avi Okon, conducting drilling tests at JPL’s Mars Yard during the development of the Curiosity rover’s sampling system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.