NASA’s The Quiet Crew | Laura White

In this episode of The Quiet Crew, you’ll meet Laura White, a mathematician working on the Commercial Supersonic Technology Project, supporting the Quesst mission. Her role is to help quantify statistics related to the loudness of the X-59 and the accuracy of simulations. She is part of the crew working to transform aviation as NASA and communities verify that the X-59’s quiet, supersonic design can turn a sonic boom into a sonic thump. This new technology, along with a potential change in regulations, will allow airliners to fly faster over land, cutting passenger travel time in half without disturbing people on the ground.

What is said in the film

My name is Laura White, and I'm a mathematician working on the Commercial Supersonic Technology project supporting the Quesst mission. My role on the mission is I get to develop all the statistics on creating how reliable our simulations are. Our goal is to take all the information that we have from the aircraft, and ensure that they align from the information that we have developed here at NASA. We need a lot of data in order to quantify what our sound is going to be on the ground. As a child, we definitely didn't have a lot of money or a lot of means.

And so, I kind of wanted to do something more with my life, and so I saw at a very early age that education could give that to me. I would spend weekends, you know, doing study cards when kids were playing because I wanted, I knew I aspired to be more or somewhere else with my life. So, if I'm not at work, you can find me at the climbing gym. I love to climb. I've been climbing for seven years.

I've climbed all over the world. Having that work-life balance, you get off of your desk, you get out of your office, allows me to get a refresher on what is the true meaning of the data and like how we can utilize that data better. I definitely see mathematics in everything I do. I love seeing everything and thinking about what's the mathematics behind that, what's the mathematics behind this, and it can all be described by these beautiful equations. I'm going to feel so excited to see the X-59 fly for the first time.

It's a phenomenal aircraft that it's just never been built, never even been realized before, and so to see it fly, it's going to be exciting to know that I've contributed to that flight in any way, will be... ... will be just I think of a very defining moment within my life.

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