K. Renee Horton

Note: Use of any portion of this interview requires the notification of Dr. Horton at [email protected].

Hostetter-Habib:

To begin with, my name is Kai Hostetter-Habib. Today is July 3rd, 2024 and I will be interviewing Dr. K. Renee Horton over Zoom. And just as an introduction for the files, Dr. Horton is currently a Space Launch Systems Quality Engineer at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

Horton:

Hold on. Let me actually correct that, because I have not corrected my bio, wherever it is.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay, no worries.

Horton:

I am an Air Worthiness Deputy for the Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstrator Project.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay, so you are an Airworthiness Deputy for NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstrator Project, and you were previously the Space Launch Systems Quality Engineer at the Michoud.

Horton:

Correct.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay. And then you also graduated from Louisiana State University in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Math, and then you went on to graduate school at the University of Alabama where you became the first African American person to receive a PhD in Material Science, concentrating in Physics from that institution. And then alongside your career at NASA, you also advocate for Black women in STEM, and for disability rights. Moreover, you were also the president for the National Society of Black Physicists from 2016 to 2018, and you became a Fellow, which is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an NSBP member, in 2017. You also founded Unapologetically Being, Incorporated, which is a nonprofit for advocacy and mentoring in STEM. You serve on the Women in Physics Working Group for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. You were an AstroAccess Ambassador on a Zero-G flight, and you are also the author of several children’s books. Did I get all of that right?

Horton:

Almost all of it is right. So, I served —past tense—on the Women in Physics Working Group, and I am currently serving on the C3, which is Developmental Physics Working Group for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay, perfect. And then is there anything you would like to say before we get into the substance of this interview?

Horton:

I think the questions that you put together are actually really good, so if we go ahead into that, we can just expound on the questions that you have, if that’s okay with you.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, that’s perfect. All right, so if you can tell me a bit about yourself, who you are, any social identifiers that you would like to share, anything else that you would like to say that is important to your core being, et cetera.

Horton:

I’ll start with I’m traditionally a nontraditional student. I was originally in school, and then during that time, I found out that I had a hearing disability. I dropped out and was out of school for 10 years. So, coming back to school, I went back to school with three kids, and with the disability, and having to have accommodations in college as well. I went on and had a fairly successful career. Just being able to monitor how things are happening in my life and then being able to adapt and change and overcome during those phases. I identify as she/her, as a Black woman, as a woman with a disability, as a person with a disability, also as a mother, a sister, a daughter, and a grandmother, these are my identifiers.

Hostetter-Habib:

All right, great. So, how I wanted to structure this, if that’s all right with you, is probably chronologically, because that would make the most sense. So, to begin with what was your childhood like? Where did you grow up? How did you get interested in space and in engineering as a whole?

Horton:

I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I am the middle child [laughs]… so all those things about middle children that we hear right now are probably all true for me. I’m very strong willed, but I’ve always had a true love for science as long as I can remember. My grandmother made my Barbie her first lab coat—that is how much I was into science. My parents got me a telescope when I turned nine, and it was like a real introduction into what I thought the universe was like at that time, because it was the first time I was seeing features and things just beyond where my feet were planted, and it sparked a true interest in science. It was like, “This is what I want to do.” I wanted to become a scientist, and from that I wanted to be an astronaut to go into outer space.

At 16, I graduated from high school, and at 17, is when I learned of my hearing disability. At that time I was in my Air Force ROTC physical, and I failed the hearing exam with a significant hearing loss, which kind of puzzled me, because I really didn’t think I had a problem. So, for me, it was just eye opening and awakening. When I entered college I wanted to go into science, but my dad said he didn’t know any Black scientists that could mentor me, but he knew some Black engineers, so my choice was engineering. And I ended up in space engineering just because of different other circumstances that we’ll cover just a little bit later for college.

Hostetter-Habib:

All right, great. And in elementary school, middle school, high school, did your community outside of your family foster your interest in science? What was your own education like in that regard?

Horton:

In elementary school I originally started off in the remedial classes because I was yelling. I was always yelling and would not talk properly and ended up with vocal nodules on my vocal cords, which are like these little knots that you get from over-using your vocal cords. That probably was the first sign that there was something wrong with my hearing, because I could not hear me. [laughs] So, we probably should have stopped right there, right? But after going through speech therapy, the teacher thought I was gifted, and I was tested and placed into gifted classes. With gifted classes, you do a lot of independent work, and my eighth grade science teacher in my gifted classes was Mr. Merle, and he was very nontraditional. He looked like ZZ Top, so, he had a long beard, rode a motorbike, wore the black boots, the black vest, chains, everything. And all I could think was, “If he can be a scientist, I can be a scientist.” And he was just amazing at fostering our love for science in the eighth grade. So, I can honestly say that in my childhood, Mr. Merle was my biggest influence as far as science, and also about being an individual in science, and being able to be who you were in doing that.

I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I think I said that though. I grew up in Baton Rouge, but in that space, we would go to my mother’s mother, and then my father’s mother… Yeah. So yeah, both of my grandparents. And they really fostered that science love as well, because their yards were just used as our exploration grounds. So, I learned displacement by placing quarters and nickels on the train tracks and allowing the trains to run over them.

Hostetter-Habib:

That’s really nice. I know in previous interviews that you’ve done, you talk about how you wanted to be an astronaut growing up. I was wondering, moving on to your time when you graduated high school at 16 and then did your ROTC physical, if you’re comfortable sharing. Also, I wanted to preface this by saying, if you’re not comfortable sharing anything we can always move on to something else.

Horton:

You’re saying about my hearing loss?

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, your hearing loss. Would you mind sharing what that experience was like for you? Because from what you’ve said in the past, from my research on you, that was really a shift in your life, when multiple things were happening at once. And I was wondering if you would mind talking about that more.

Horton:

Yeah, actually being diagnosed with the hearing loss was a huge blow to who I was as a person. It’s like you pick these things and you identify with them, so for me, I wanted to be an astronaut, and I was really focused on that—like, becoming a pilot and then being an astronaut and being in the Air Force. I wanted to give back to my country. It was the plan, to me, which was the perfect plan. And to go and to sit in a room, and to—for the first time pretty much in my young life—being rejected in the manner that I was being rejected was huge. I watched him mark the red X on the reject box, even having to process that was quite a bit. Because it was like the thing that I thought I wanted and had been dreaming about for, like, six years was not going to happen. But at that moment, I also didn’t have a backup plan. Like, what if it doesn’t happen? Is there a backup plan? Is there a something else you may or may not like? And I didn’t have that for me. So, that shift came. The test was in Mississippi, and I drove back to Louisiana, which is maybe a two-hour drive, and at that time I had a boyfriend who was gorgeous. Lord have mercy, my ex-husband was a gorgeous man. [laughs] But anyway, we consoled each other, and I ended up getting pregnant during that time. So, not only was I diagnosed with the hearing loss, I ended up dropping out of college, becoming a mother, becoming a wife, and then moving overseas. So, all of that happened within a span of two years.

Hostetter-Habib:

Thank you for sharing that. What were those two years like for you? Because it was such a drastic shift, what was your mental state at the time? Were you focused on being a mother? Were you focused on getting back to college? What was going through your head at the time?

Horton:

Actually, no. During those two years I wasn’t even focused on going to college. I actually was like, “I guess college isn’t going to be for me.” So, I delved into being a wife and a mother. We lived overseas for three years, so overseas, I was a wife—I mean, just a wife and a mother. I worked for the Department of the Army as a photographer, and that was truly—it is still a hobby now and truly a passion of mine, being able to take those types of photos and being able to develop. So, I spent a lot of time in the dark room. And during the time we moved to Georgia, I decided then—because it was interesting that the fact that I had the hearing disability, that I was still a razor sharp. So, it was one of those things where I realized, even with the disability, I was still extremely intellectually capable. And it wasn’t, pretty much, until that moment that I was working for people who just weren’t very logical thinkers, so it was a hard place to be. Like, “That doesn’t make sense.” Or, “How did you get there?” And then they were basing it off of either emotion, or just something else, like no logic. And it was one of the things that ended up driving me back to school, because it was during that time that I realized I was intellectually capable of being in school. So, I went back to school at the University of South Carolina. The University of South Carolina in Aiken, South Carolina is where I actually started college again and did a year of physics there before ending up dropping out, because I went back to school without any accommodation, so I was still struggling and having some difficulty. It was like, “Maybe this just isn’t for me after all.” And then we ended up separating, and I went back to Louisiana. So in Louisiana, this is some years later—I ended up going back to school after being out of school for 10 years. But when I was out of school, I was trying to grasp that after all of this time, I was different. So, can you imagine seventeen, eighteen years of not knowing if there’s something wrong, and then finding out whatever that something wrong is, is going to progressively get worse. So, I struggled with that in the beginning, but by the time I decided to go back to school, I just wanted a better life, and I also wanted to be back in an intellectual circle.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, so what was your transition back into college—after the North Carolina [College], into Louisiana State University—like for you after that 10-year gap?

Horton:

Man, going back to school after 10 years was really difficult because I went back with three kids, and I did it the hard way I think. [laughs] I packed us up and moved us onto campus, so we lived in family housing, and we lived with other families with children who were just as poor as I was. I was making about $9,000 or $10,000 a year, and then I took student loans and literally lived off of that. For the two years I was back in school, I was on a vocational rehabilitation scholarship, and that paid for my books, it paid my tuition, and it paid my day care. So, it was really just being able to live—we were living just above poverty, but it allowed me to be in school full time and also meet other parents with kids who were doing the same thing, who just wanted to better their lives. But it was a difficult time because the normality of everything else in my life kind of ceased to exist. There wasn’t really any social [activities] or anything like that. We were on a very strict and rigid schedule where if it didn’t make the schedule by Sunday, we didn’t do it. We never added anything in or any of that. So, I can honestly say it was just a very different time, but I wouldn’t go back and do it a different way.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah. So, because it seems like a very difficult time, was there anything that was driving you to finishing this degree?

Horton:

Yeah. When I gave birth to my daughter, looking at her—I remember them bringing her to me, and it was almost like there was this conversation where she was like, “Okay so what are we gonna do now?” And I was like, “Well, I just had a baby; I’m not doing anything.” And then she was like, “No, what are we gonna do now?” And at that moment, it was like my soul was speaking to me to say, “You have got to do something to make sure that this world is okay for her.” Not even understanding what that meant or why. It turns out my daughter also has the same hearing impairment I do, so me going back to school and being able to be make these strides as an advocate for accessibility and for persons with disability, later I was able to take that same skill set to help her achieve her dreams and her goal without having to sit out for ten years. It was also one of those things where I woke up one day, and it was like, “You know what? I want to be a functioning member of society.” It hit me, like, “Why aren’t we doing that?” So, going back to school is what gave me that moment of, “Okay, we can find a way to impact society.”

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah. So, going back to a previous statement, you said you chose engineering because there were more Black mentors in the field when you went to college. So, how did mentoring help you, affect you, during your time in undergraduate?

Horton:

Oh, it was huge. Being able to be mentored by someone who has walked through the field or has some general knowledge is extremely important. They’re helping you not make the same mistakes that they made, so for me it was a good place to be. The only difference is I wasn’t talking to someone who started college at 16, so there were still aspects of that that never got mentored [laughs] or never got addressed, like the social aspect of starting college at such a young age—none of those things. But as far as being able to talk to people who had their careers in engineering, or who had actually gone through college and were able to give me different advice, that was just a true gem that I’m glad I didn’t have to go without.

Hostetter-Habib:

Did you also have mentors after your ten-year gap?

Horton:

Yes. So, even going back to college, I had mentors, and that’s simply because I don’t think you should go anywhere alone. And if you decide to go alone, you sure won’t get there fast, because you’re stumbling along a lot of stumbling blocks. So, I had several mentors along the way. And it’s kind of funny, because some of those mentors now I work with, and some of those mentors I’m now mentoring [laughs] on how to make the next step. So, it definitely came full circle.

Hostetter-Habib:

And then how did you wind up switching to physics—a concentration in physics and material sciences—in your graduate program? And what made you want to go and get a PhD in the first place?

Horton:

In undergraduate I was doing electrical engineering with a concentration on chip design, and I realized I was more interested in the materials that were making the chips, and less interested in the circuits. So, when I first started trying to go get a graduate degree in engineering, I really wasn’t interested in it, but my professor said to me, he was like, “This is not the area you want to be in.” He was like, “You’re more of a science person. You should probably look into that.” And then I took this course over the summer, because during the summers I would try to find things for me and the kids to do. So, there was a course at the University of Alabama called “Everyday Material Science and Everyday Experiences”… something like that… and it gave us housing, and it allowed us to be in Alabama, which was like driving distance. And I went to the University of Alabama for that course that summer, and during that course, it was like a light bulb went off, like, “This! This is what I want to be doing!” And it was like, “Okay, how do we get here?” And at that time, there was a program—a fellowship—where you could go, and if you were going to teach, they would pay. So, I got that fellowship and a NASA fellowship, and we ended up moving to Alabama. The program was material science, and then you picked your concentration. I had already done a ton of physics because that’s where my love and passion were, so my concentration remained physics, and all the rest of my coursework was physics.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay. I know even now physics is a very white-male-dominated field, and it’s also dominated by a lot of people who do not have disabilities, so what was navigating academia as a PhD student like? As a person with a hearing impairment, as a Black woman, but also as a mother of three kids at the time?

Horton:

I’m going to say out of all the three things you just said, the hearing disability was the least of my trouble. Because with the hearing disability, it is covered under law, so there were things that were put in place from undergraduate that carried over to graduate school. So, those were things that just could not be denied. I was recording lectures. I had a note taker. So, it was always things like that. They had to give me additional office hours if I needed them to be able to go through lectures. But I spent a lot of time prepping myself, before and afterwards, to not have to burden my professors any more than them having to wear the mic, because they were stressed out with wearing this mic and having their lectures recorded. But I can honestly say it was the least of the three things.

I just dealt with a lot of—especially with the field being white, male… a lot of them had wives who took care of their children—so I dealt with a lot of that from my white colleagues, and even from the ones that were foreign, that, “Maybe you should just be at home taking care of your kids.” That kind of attitude; that made some things just really difficult. And being in Alabama, I dealt with a lot of racists. So, it was less about being a woman, and more about being an African American in that field and blatant racism. During the time Obama was running for office, I ended up with a monkey with a noose on my desk. So, it wasn’t just the racism from the professors, it was also from the students within the space that I actually worked in. So, when I think about those three, I have to say, for my time working on my PhD, the disability was the least of my worries; and working on my undergraduate, the disability was the greatest of my worries, because it was during a time that I was learning to conquer the disability.

Hostetter-Habib:

Well, thank you. And we talked about what kept you going during undergrad, but especially with this blatant racism that you experienced in your PhD program—and PhD programs, I know, can last a very long time. Even without dealing with racism, dealing with misogyny, people drop out. So, what kept you going to graduate from the University of Alabama as the first African American person to get a PhD in your field?

Horton:

That last part was not even a motivator because it made things a lot more difficult. People… everybody kind of knew my success and my failures going along the way, because I was the first to—especially after, there was one Black before me who didn’t get past qualifiers, and that was very well known that she didn’t get past qualifiers. Like, “Are you going to get past qualifiers?” And then I got past qualifiers; it was like, “Okay, well are you going to get to graduation?” [laughs] But it was my kids. And it was the fact that I started a program that didn’t have a master’s. You can get three or four years in, and then you can walk away from some PhD programs with a master’s, and I didn’t have that opportunity. So, it was: You’re going to have to do this, and you’re going to have to go through. You’re going to have to continue.

And during that time, I had some very amazing people. Dr. Viola Acoff, she was at the University of Alabama at that time, and she was extremely just amazing as a mentor for Black women, to be able to give us what we needed during that time. And during that time, I was part of the National Society of Black Physicists, so every year we would go to conference, and I would have the opportunity to talk to other very successful Black physicists that would talk about their struggles and hardships. And right then, you knew—well, I knew—that if they could get through it, I could get through it too. And the idea that there was always someone to refill your cup, like when you ran empty. So, by the time we would get to conference, I would be completely empty. Conference used to be in February, so you had gone through the previous spring, previous summer, previous fall, and then now you’re back again and it’s at the top of the spring, and it’s like, okay, you’re completely empty with motivation or whatever it is. And then you’d go there… and to be able to walk into a room where everybody resembles something about you, right? You’re looking around, and there are a room full of Black folks that are extremely intelligent, that are nerdy, that are having these deep intellectual conversations, and it’s like, “Man, this is my tribe! I belong here!” And it’s okay to walk away from that space and go back into what you’re going into, knowing that we would always be able to come back and do that.

I also had other fellowships during the time, I had these two other fellowships, and they also had conferences which met every year. So, it was also a space that you were meeting up with other intellects, or intellects to be, and being able to talk about who you are in that space, and how everybody was navigating the space was huge for me in being able to keep me going and keep me moving forward.

Hostetter-Habib:

I know you were a Fellow in the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Graduate Student Research Program, the Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Program, and some other fellowships. And you also, I believe, won an Outreach Award in 2008, and won a Black Engineer of the Year Trailblazer Award in 2011. I was wondering if you would care to elaborate on any of these experiences or awards in terms of what they did for you, what you did in them. Did they affect you at all? If so, how? Things like that.

Horton:

With the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Graduate Student Research Program and the Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Program, those were both NASA fellowships, so both of those allowed me access to the NASA facility. I ended up doing my dissertation through the Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Program, because that was something I worked on, and then we were able to convert it to work that could be published for my dissertation. The Southern Regional Education Board Program was the first fellowship that I got at the University of Alabama, along with the GSRP, which allowed me to not work, and to just go to school and then have the kids. They also had an annual conference every year.

So, all of the fellowships that I had, you came in as a cohort, and then you stayed with that group of cohorts for three years all the way through. You attended the conferences while you were a part of these fellowships, and then during that time, you were mentored, you were advised, you were able to just build family with other folks who were going through the things that you were going through. These things greatly affected me in doing that, because I knew each year that regardless of what I was going through, I was always going to end up in a space where I would be loved, nurtured and protected just enough to help me. I always felt like it was rebuilding my armor to go back to war [laughs] during my PhD.

The awards themselves never really—I think that being awarded or being acknowledged is always amazing, but I understand that when I decided to walk this purpose to be able to make impact, that it’s still just not my journey. I’m very spiritually grounded, so for me, I believe that God put me on this path for a particular purpose. And being able to do that, I truly feel like this isn’t really about me, but it’s about the greater good and about making a greater impact. So, in doing that, the awards are nice, but I try not to let them affect me and try to remain humble about what I’m actually doing. But I’m always truly honored when someone chooses to honor.

Hostetter-Habib:

I have a very much side question, because I’m the son—one of my parents is a minister. So, I was wondering how your spirituality affected you growing up, and how you carry it with you now.

Horton:

My spirituality and how I saw religion was probably dismantled for me my first semester of college. [laughs] I went to a history class—I had a history class—and the history teacher said, “You got two textbooks. You’re going to purchase one textbook, and you’re going to bring the other one from home.” And I was like, “Bring the other one from home? What are we bringing from home?” And it was your Bible. And we brought the Bible in, and this professor went through and chopped it up, like, how all the things that were being reported in the Bible couldn’t have all happened the way that they happened, or in the order that they were happening in, based on history as well. So, it was like, “Yo, wait a minute. You’re trying to tell me my Bible’s a lie?” And then he was like, “No, I’m not trying to tell you the Bible’s a lie; I’m just trying to tell you it’s not what you think it is.” So, that was my first kind of dismantling of how I saw religion. And then it became, as I moved on, especially being a scientist, it really became: “How do I align with a greater being?” So, “How do I align with God? Where do I fit into this picture?” And understanding and truly digging into the origin of our Bible, and then having to read other translations and things like that. And then just understanding how we got the King James Version, and how that actually plays out. I am a firm believer that there is a greater being over us—God—and that the works that we are uncovering in science are all truly His works. So for me, I am spiritually aligned in that way, and that’s how I move and move forward. I also believe that I have a purpose in life, and that part of that purpose is to affect this change in this area that God has allowed me to have a true passion.

Hostetter-Habib:

Thank you so much for sharing. I know there’s a lot—I mean, I also study history, and I know all of what you’re talking about, so it’s very interesting to hear someone else re-emphasize that. Moving on to your PhD dissertation, I know it was titled The Fundamental Mechanism and Interaction of the Materials of Self-Reacting Friction Stir and Plug Weld of Dissimilar Aluminum Alloys. So, I was wondering how you managed to find—you talked about how you were doing the research during the Harriett Jenkins Fellowship, the predoctoral program—but how did you land on that area of research for your dissertation?

Horton:

At the time, the program was Constellation, and we were looking at the fact that we were welding with dissimilar aluminas, but we were also pull plugging the hole. When you do a circumferential weld, it leaves a hole, and you put a pull plug, which is also a friction stir pull plug where they’re spinning this plug really fastly, the heat kind of melts and deforms the material, and then the plug seals, and then once it cools, it’s sealed at that point. But we were getting a fracture. What I ended up discovering during that time, and during that research, that we were getting this fracture at—originally we thought it was going to be like at the 12-o’clock and the 6-o’clock points, and it wasn’t; it was more at a 45, but at a tri-point where all three different materials were meeting, and then that was the weakest spot, and that’s where our fractures were propagating. Well, Constellation got canceled during the time I was doing my dissertation, and when Constellation was canceled, all of the material that I was working on was able to be free and released to the public. So, it was just a natural progression that, “Hey, you’ve already done all these summers and this work; we can put this together now as your dissertation.” And that’s what I chose to do.

Hostetter-Habib:

I know you started working at NASA in 2012. Do you use any of the work from your dissertation, since it was research you did at NASA, in your jobs—in your job now, or in your past jobs?

Horton:

Yeah. For the decade that I worked on SLS—so, on the Artemis program—I actually was the subject-matter expert for the welding area, which did friction stir welding and then self-reacting friction stir welding. So, actually, my dissertation, or some aspect of my dissertation, will fly on every Artemis rocket.

Hostetter-Habib:

Oh, okay. That’s amazing!

Horton:

Yeah.

Hostetter-Habib:

Wow! [laughs] What was it like working on Artemis? I follow it quite closely just because I think it’s amazing. But especially as someone who wanted to be an astronaut, and then we’re going to send people into space in, what, a year or two? What was that like for you?

Horton:

It was pretty amazing because it was like one of those moments—working for NASA has been amazing, because I wanted to go into space, and then the disability kind of grounded me. But my first position at NASA, which was a materials test engineer, allowed me to test the welding that I had worked on as my dissertation—like a variation of that welding—and we were allowed to write our names on the test article. So, for me, it was like my life came full circle with having my name going into space for NASA. So, it was like, “Man, my life just came full circle!” But being in NASA and being able to do those things for a greater good is such a greater calling. Did I answer the question?

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, you did. Did you have a favorite part of working at NASA over the years? The past, what, decade? Decade and two years?

Horton:

Let’s see… Right now, this is the most enjoyable I’ve had for NASA, and that’s being out of the space side and being on the aero side. I have a very personable team, and it’s the first time I’ve gotten to really know know my teammates, so I’m truly enjoying that right now. And I think the most memorable times for NASA—well, I’ve got two things. One is meeting the astronauts and meeting their families, and knowing that the work you’re doing, that these folks are going to be on that. It makes you focus a lot harder on making sure that the things are safe right and that you’re doing the best job that you can do. And then my other thing was I got to give the safety talk. And safety day is a really big deal in our agency, because, like, your center will shut down, and nobody is working, and then you get to give these safety talks. But was able to give the safety talk to the division at Johnson Space Center, where it’s for the pilots and for the astronauts. So, I was able to talk to people about the work that I actually get to do. So, those were some highlights that really made a big difference in my life and in my career at NASA, and have been extremely enjoyable at NASA.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay, and just so we have this on record, would you mind talking more about your different positions that you held at NASA? I know you talked about how you started off as a material science engineer, and then you were an SLS quality engineer, and now you’re the Airworthiness Deputy; so, would you mind going into each one of these components?

Horton:

Yeah. So, as a student, I worked as a material test engineer, and then when I was hired at NASA, a year after graduation, it was as a material test engineer. What I did as a material test engineer was to make sure that the testing that we were doing at that time, which was the beginning of SLS, that for each job you make sure that you’re in budget and that your testing is done on time to meet a greater schedule. So, I went from being down in the lab, to overseeing the projects that were going through the lab. And then I moved on to be a systems engineer, and during that time as a systems engineer I got to oversee, on paper, everything dealing with the engines, integration of the engines into the engine section—and it was on paper. So, solving problems like, “How do we get the engines through the factory? Where are they going to be stored?” that kind of thing, traveling back and forth, at the time, from Huntsville down to Louisiana.

And then finally I was transferred down to Louisiana and worked then as a nonconformance engineer, first, before becoming a quality engineer. I worked as a nonconformance engineer for multiple years down at Michoud, which allowed us to know everything that wasn’t conforming to the requirements, how it was fixed, how it was repaired, or if it had to be scrapped and done over again. And then I did root cause and corrective action during that time, where when you’re going through your problem, you have to know what caused the problem, and then you have to be able to tell us how you’re fixing the problem at the root and not just at the end that it was affected at. I did that all the way up until 2020. And then in 2020, I did a leadership development program and traveled out to California and lived out in California for seven to nine months—well, worked out in California for seven to nine months. And during that time, I worked on the Low Boom Flight Demonstrator Project, which is a current airplane project to get rid of the sonic boom. And then, it was like, “Okay,” but it was also one of those “Aha!” moments of how my life was coming full circle again. Because back to my ROTC time, I wanted to be a pilot, and now I was working with pilots. They really liked my skill set, they really liked my manner and style of leadership, so they offered me a position and a promotion, and I took it. So, I left the space side and went into the aero side, and now I’m currently the Airworthiness Deputy. As the Airworthiness Deputy, I’m working on two hybrid electric projects with two different contractors. One is trying to make a two-engine plane hybrid-electric, and the other is trying to make a four-engine plane hybrid-electric. And in doing that, the Airworthiness Deputy makes sure that what they’re doing is safe overall so that the Center can assume the risk that goes with research planes, and allow them to be able to fly these test planes in 2025 and 2026.

Hostetter-Habib:

So, are you currently based in California, or are you back in Louisiana?

Horton:

I work remote.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay. Going on to the next question, I believe in 2019 you won the Spaceflight Team Award and also the Center Level Appreciation Honor Award, and I was wondering how do you approach, not only your work, but also working on a team?

Horton:

I love working on a team because there’s so many diverse ideas. And I can honestly say one of my skill sets is knowing when I need to be a leader, but also knowing when I need to be a follower and when to let other people lead. So, I take a lot of pride in that. I also believe in inclusivity and making sure everybody feels valued on a team. And when I look at the awards, I truly appreciate the team award because it was a cross-dynamic team that we had to work with, and it was like two different contractors, and then NASA. And then it was a male-dominated team. There were a few females on it, but for the most part, it was male dominated. And the idea that we could all get along in such a manner, it was just such a personable relationship with these folks working across that. And then it was a lot of nitty gritty, like, these are the things that I have to get done. And to be able to get it done, we were doing something new and innovative, and everybody was tied into the greater good, so that alone has made it amazing.

Now, of course the Center Level Appreciation Award is about my work individually, and it was nice being able to be acknowledged at the Center Level for the work that I was doing because that work that I was doing at the time was very—it was a little controversial, and it created a lot of dynamic change at the factory for us. So, it’s like a matter of you’re doing something, and then it’s like, man, that wasn’t the—and you had to tell on somebody or tell on some things. And then it’s like, for them to go back and say, “You know what? But you did a good thing.” It was like a really nice pat on the back, not that I didn’t feel deserving of, but it was really nice. If they had not given me the award, I still would have been proud of the work, but the fact that I did receive an award showed that it was also valued at a higher level outside of me.

Hostetter-Habib:

Are you able to go into why your work was a bit controversial?

Horton:

You probably could even Google it, but there was some—let’s see how I can give it a generic… It was just based on having to dismantle a particular contract, having to point out the legalities of some of those things, and then we ended up having a stop-work associated with it. So, a lot of times stop-workage can be stressful in itself because people are looking at you like, “Why would you stop the work? We’re not going to make the deadline.” So the fact that there were stop-workage, and it was not a short period of stop-workage, it was a large period of stop-workage, and having to report that all the way up the chain to the center management—and it was two centers that we had to go through and report it through. It was just a stressful time during that time. And it was dealing with a system that was extremely critical on the rocket.

Hostetter-Habib:

I know you said there was a lot of collaboration, and your workspace felt very much like a community. I was wondering—because I know that NASA is also very much white male dominated—have there ever been times of friction while at NASA, especially in a leadership role? And just what has the progression of the workspace environment there been like for you?

Horton:

Working at the factory was extremely difficult at some points in time. At one point I was the only Black on staff for NASA in the factory. And this is the South; people don’t hide their racism here, so I dealt with some of that in the factory with some of the workers that had to either report to me or were underneath me. Because it’s also a male-dominated place, I dealt with sexual harassment and had to file a sexual-harassment suit. And I dealt with the insecurities of people that come along with: you are great, or you’re doing great things, and I just don’t measure up, which have nothing to do with me and [laughs] everything to do with them. But when you’re dealing with people who have gotten their positions just simply because they were there or next in line, and not truly because they deserved it, you deal with a lot of backlash and a lot of underhanded stuff. One of the things was, in learning to survive, you also learn how to deal with those things in a positive manner to still be able to get the job done. So, being in that space gave me thicker skin, and it taught me how to deal with a lot of other things that I was going to deal with in society or in other positions. But I always say that the racism in Louisiana is up in front. Like, you know who’s a racist. [laughs] Whereas in Alabama, you didn’t know who was a racist, and they were willing to stab you.

Hostetter-Habib:

Have you seen any progress in the terms of the factory space, your workspace, being more inclusive over the years? Or has it basically been stagnant?

Horton:

No, it’s definitely gotten a lot better. The contractors also hire a lot of African Americans because New Orleans as a city, has a larger percentage of African Americans, so hiring locals, you tend to have more African Americans in the other positions. Boeing was a contractor for Artemis in the factory, and I can honestly say that they have done a great job with management and making management diverse and inclusive. And Boeing has done a job, even with women—so white and Black women being in management positions—they’ve just done a great job. So, it helps the factory overall. And as far as NASA, NASA has definitely done better with what the diversity of the staff looks like at the factory over the last 10 years.

Hostetter-Habib:

I know you yourself are an advocate for diversity, for Black people in STEM, for women in STEM. Have you done any advocacy work for NASA? Or has that primarily been outside in other STEM situations?

Horton:

I do a lot of outreach for NASA, so that’s probably the biggest advocacy that I’ve done for them. I’ve gone out and I’ve done a lot of talks, so being up in front and out for NASA as a Black person helps a lot. It gives kids hopes and dreams that, “Hey, maybe this could happen for me.” So, I think that in and of itself is where my advocacy comes for NASA.

Hostetter-Habib:

Great, thank you. Moving on to the National Society of Black Physicists, I know you spoke of your time in the PhD program, that it was a great source of—you could rely on them and lean on them. But I was wondering, how did you first discover NSBP?

Horton:

I was at Southern University as part of the physics program doing a master’s, and I left that program and did not get a master’s. But I was part of that program, and Dr. Bagayoko said to me, “I need a mentor to take these kids to the conference as a chaperone.” [laughs] So, at that time, we were chaperoning the undergraduates, and I said, “Okay.” And I went and it was my first introduction to the Society. Actually, it was during the time that I was an engineering major, and they sent me, and then after that is when I switched to physics.

Hostetter-Habib:

What was the progression of you being a member of NSBP to becoming president of NSBP?

Horton:

Yeah, that’s interesting. [laughs] I was a member, but I also fought, like as a student, for the women’s working group within NSBP. My work as a student ended up leading to a student being able to be on the board. And I cannot remember if I officially served as the first one, or maybe not. I guess it’s not even important now, though. But I did a lot of work with the women’s group. I represented NSBP at the first International Pure and Applied Physics, Women in Physics meeting that I attended, which was in Brazil in 2005. So, I started there. And then upon graduation, it was not like I set out to be president or anything, because the organization was in some trouble. When I graduated, we were facing bankruptcy, having to make a decision on whether or not we would go bankrupt. We had a gentleman at the time, he was kind of like a tyrant and had taken over the organization and was leading it, and it wasn’t all for the good.

So, becoming president was—when I talk about, like, we all come in waves. So, when I joined the organization, there were a bunch of us pursuing our PhD, so that kind of becomes your cohort. So, that generational group became the people that I bonded with over physics and over just personal life. And when I got the call from Dr. Jami Valentine that we needed a president candidate, I was like, “Well, I’m not going to win, but you can put my name on it.” [laughs] She said, “Okay.” And then I won. And it was like, “What did I just get myself into?” Because at that time, we had gone a year without an election, and the current president have been in the office longer than he was supposed to because we didn’t have a candidate. It was just a lot of things that had gone wrong the previous years, and I walked into, for lack of a better term, a shit storm. And it was like, “Yo, what?” Like, “How do I save our organization?” Right? So, during my tenure with an amazing board of people who were my colleagues and people who had previously mentored me, having their advice and being on the advisory committee and being able to call past presidents to be able to say, “Look, how do we do this, and what’s the best way?” really helped. One of the things I think led me to accomplish the things that I accomplished for NSBP is that I’ve always been an outside-of-the-box thinker, so immediately I started thinking of ways on how to solve each one of the smaller problems that went along with that.

Hostetter-Habib:

What were your goals? Because I know it was kind of a shock to you, but did you have any goals when you were going into your tenure as NSBP president?

Horton:

Oh yeah. One of them was to save the organization. We didn’t want to go through bankruptcy. At the time, we had a lawsuit with Marriott, and we were paying them, so one of my goals was to figure out how to get that debt paid off. One of our former members, his house was tied to the legality—the legal action—so, if we didn’t make the payments every month, then he would end up losing his house. So, we ended up launching a 40-for-40 campaign, and that was we were trying to get 40 lifetime members to hit for the 40th-year anniversary, and we ended up raising a lot of money through that campaign to be able to pay that debt down. We got it to the point where we actually had money in our account, but we did some very strategic things to make that happen, bringing us from the red into the black. And then it was like, “Oh wait, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.” And then we were able to get us out of debt and pay off the last payment to the Marriott and get out of that legal action. We got this guy’s house free and clear so he could go on with his life. So, you have to have a goal. When you’re standing in a place that’s currently in a thunderstorm, tornado, or hurricane, however you want to look at it, you’ve got to have a goal to get you out of that. And I had a goal, but I had an amazing board that actually helped me work through that.

Hostetter-Habib:

Besides getting the NSBP out of that bankruptcy, that debt, what else did you accomplish as president?

Horton:

We increased membership. We ended up with a student internship for two students at Fermi National Lab. We started our conferences back bigger than what they were before. They were really small, but we were able to get them back in order and get them going again. We were able to line up the next president to get us back on our regular cycle of our elections, and then getting that lined up. And then just moving the organization forward in a positive manner. Right now we’ve got a surplus of money, we’re not operating on a shoestring budget. We’ve been able to put some things in place. The next couple of presidents after me have been able to put some things in place and get some major donations and things like that, but if we had never been able to get back to the point where we could have gotten NSF funding, which happened during my tenure, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I was wondering, is there anything that you learned from your tenure as president that you keep with you when approaching your other nonprofit work, your job as the airworthiness deputy, anything like that?

Horton:

Yeah, I learned that anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’ll tell people that the tenure as NSBP president was the hardest thing that I’ve done to date. It’s hard being under attack. It’s hard with people trying to sabotage your character. It’s really hard when you have folks that are fighting you within the organization. It was a hard place to be, but I did it, and I’m glad I did it because it really taught me a lot about learning people as a leader, so I’m able to apply that in my life now and in the work that I do now.

Hostetter-Habib:

Is there anything that you tell yourself, that you keep with you when you are in such front-facing positions where you are subject to attacks on your character, attacks on your being, that makes you keep going and keep realizing that this is what I need to put my energy in fighting for?

Horton:

Yeah, I just tell myself that this is where God wants me to be. If I’m receiving this much opposition, that this is the place that I’m supposed to make effective change. It’s just that simple.

Hostetter-Habib:

Going on to your other advocacy work, I was wondering what—because I know that it’s one thing to be part of communities of like people, but it’s another thing to start advocating for whatever identity that you’re advocating for. So, what got you interested in advocacy work in the first place?

Horton:

Me. If I wasn’t going to stand up for me, who was? I was intersecting a very different place than most of the people I was running into: I was a nontraditional student; I was the mother of three; I had a disability; I was in a space where people didn’t look like me and didn’t have a similar life as me. So, if I wasn’t going to get up enough balls to stand up for me, why would anybody else want to stand up for me?

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, I get that on a very personal level. I know we just hit the hour mark, so I wanted to see if you wanted to take a five-minute break or anything, or just keep powering through?

Horton:

Actually, I’d like to stop for a second so I can to get some water.

Hostetter-Habib:

All right, yeah. Great, so my next question is that I know in 2017 you founded Unapologetically Being, Incorporated, which is a nonprofit that advocates for diversity in STEM and provides mentoring services. I was wondering: What drew you to founding this organization? And what has it done over the years since its founding?

Horton:

We just closed it out this year—the beginning of this year—so I’ll start with that. But over the years we have mentored cohorts of students that have come in. And our mentoring was just a little bit differently, because a lot of times you’ll go into mentoring and it’s very structured, and it’s like, “We’re giving you this skill and that skill.” And then what we decided to do was to kind of talk to the students and identify where they were the weakest in their areas, and to help them with that. And not academically, right? So, if you had a problem with goal setting, then we worked with you with goal setting. So, in the beginning we kind of did it overarching; I started with two students, and then five, eight, and then we moved up like that. And then along the way I reached out to my colleagues, and I was like, “Look, I’ve got these students who need mentors. Do you mind—you personally—mentoring one or two?” And then they would always do that. We structured the program so that they all, in the beginning, had to report in at the beginning of the semester, then you reported in at the end of the semester, and then the mentors made themselves available for the mentees at least up to twice a year if they needed it. So, it worked out really good.

The program was really different in the fact that, after being president of NSBP, people would call and be like—or, you could call and say, “Oh, can I come and talk to you?” And then when students would have problems, we would go into those departments and talk to those department heads, because people wanted to talk to the president or the past president of NSBP. So, I would go to them and say, “Look, your student is having these kind of problems. What are you gonna do?” and it’s like, and we know about them. So, our mentoring style was a little bit different in that we were willing to stand up for our students. We’re not seeking grants or anything like that, so I never really worried about pissing anybody off, and I piss people off all the time. So, it’s like, you’re going to be pissed, but at least you’ve heard what I need you to hear.

Hostetter-Habib:

What ages were the students that you primarily mentored?

Horton:

All college aged—undergraduate and graduate students. I’ve had a few people that ask me about high school students. I’ve mentored one or two high school students; just kind of not my area though. They need something really different. And the one or two that I was able to mentor, they were very much strong students to begin with and just needed some other guidance. But for the most part it has been college-age students.

Hostetter-Habib:

Were the students primarily interested in material science, or physics, or…?

Horton:

Physics, biology; just as long as they’re in STEM.

Hostetter-Habib:

Was it open for everyone? Or was it primarily geared towards women, towards Black people?

Horton:

Everyone. Everyone.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay. Very interesting.

Horton:

Actually, one of my favorite students is a white male out of Canada. [both laugh] He was by far my favorite mentor. I absolutely loved everything about him, even, like, the way he took the guidance, and the way that he’s currently an advocate now. Yeah.

Hostetter-Habib:

That’s amazing. How did students find the organization? Did you reach out to institutions, or did they find you, or…?

Horton:

They found me. They would always find me. [laughs] Always. I would speak at a conference and then we’d pick up one or two; or somebody would hear me, and then a year later would be like, “I heard you speak. I need a little help now.” Or, “A friend of mine told me about you.” So, it definitely was word of mouth.

Hostetter-Habib:

I also know you’re involved, or were involved, with the Louisiana State University alumni-mentor program, and a mentor for the Patty Grace Smith Fellowship. I know advocacy was because you really needed to advocate for yourself, but then what got you interested in mentorship?

Horton:

The idea that somebody was willing to give to me made me want to be able to give to others. I understood the necessity of being able to have transparent conversations about what’s happening to you as a woman, or what’s happening to you as a Black person. And when God calls you to service, you could tell Him what you’re not gonna do. [laughs] Right? But He’s going to tell you what you are going to do. And mentoring was one of those things that came naturally, because it always was my way of feeling like I was honoring what God was calling me to do in an area that I love. So, I’m truly grateful that I’m able to make these type of impacts in the STEM area, because it’s a place where I love to thrive. And the idea that I am planting seeds in others that are going to grow eventually to make an impact and change the face of what STEM looks like is a big deal for me.

Hostetter-Habib:

Since I know it’s been—I don’t know—a decade or so since you graduated from your PhD program, and you’re now mentoring students who are either an undergraduate or graduate, have you seen some of the same challenges that you faced? Are they different? Is there any overlap, or all the challenges very distinct to each student? What has your experience been like helping these students navigate the challenges that they have in their own lives?

Horton:

All right, so now you make me feel old. So, it’s been a decade.

Hostetter-Habib:

[laughs] I’m sorry, I did not mean to make you feel old.

Horton:

So, like a decade since I’ve gotten my PhD, and two decades [laughs] since I got my undergraduate. [both laugh] Wow, so that’s a long time I’ve been in this area! I’ve never really—I don’t think about it like that, right? But some of the challenges are still the same, which is crazy that we are still dealing with some of those things. It makes me sad that we’ve come so far to not have gone anywhere. If that makes sense. When I get students who are still dealing with misogyny and racism, I’m thinking, “What the world? When are we going to get past that?” Right? Especially if these students have shown that they belong in these fields, and they can show the intellectual thought process that goes along with solving some huge problem for the world. Then it’s like, “Okay, we belong here.” Why are we still having a fight to be here because of our gender or because of our race? And then on the other side, it’s like, you do see some areas that have just flourished and changed, and become more inclusive and more inviting. And I just really think it’s about the dynamic of those that were in control, retiring or leaving the fields that allows for the change to happen.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Moving on to your other forms of advocacy, I know that you were an ambassador for AstroAccess on a zero-G flight, so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about your experience with that, what you did on the flight, and how you got there. Anything like that.

Horton:

I’m going to talk about—I have a love-hate relationship with AstroAccess. I’m going to start with that. The experience was great as a personal experience for me, because it was like that moment of me being able to float like I was in space. So, it was like that lifelong dream of, what does it feel like to be in outer space? I wasn’t in outer space, but I got to feel what that zero-G feels like, Martian gravity feels like, and lunar gravity feels like. I worked two different research projects on AstroAccess. One was dealing with a particular software that is out, that can be added to your computer, that allows you to use your own headphones to be able to change it like you would your hearing aid. So, it’s a program that’s computer-based that gives you the ability to be able to change highs and lows in people’s voices and things like that, just to be able to hear better and clearer. So, we did that on some tablets and worked with that with some headphones, and noise-cancelation headphones, and did that work in the beginning to say, would this be viable for someone on a plane? Or that kind of thing—or in space.

And then the second part of my project was to lead a completely blind person at the time, and assist him in getting his research done after my research was done—or, while my research was being done. And that was the most beautiful experience ever. To watch him be, in that moment, fearless, and do something that he was working to accomplish, was amazing. He can’t see what I saw, and the joy on his face was just indescribable. So yeah, that was part of my experience.

The thing about AstroAccess is that even though the organization is to advance those with disabilities, I have a hidden disability; so, when you look at me, I don’t look different than anyone else. It’s not until I either state it or I start having a problem. And the world responds off of what they can visualize, so those with greater disabilities, or more pronounced disabilities, or physical disabilities that were very evident, they were the star of the show for AstroAccess. So, that’s where my love-hate comes into it. We’re all here because we are part of the disability community, not because yours is more visible than mine. We’re not the ones chosen for the TV; we’re not the ones chosen for the articles; we’re not the ones chosen for the pictures. My picture was chosen because I worked for NASA, and NASA chose our picture. And then because NASA chose our picture—and it was a very diverse picture, right? It was a Black woman in there with a cane, because she was blind; there’s a completely deaf woman in there who is Hispanic; and then there’s a hard-of-hearing woman in there who is Black. All of that is very visual, right? At that moment that they were talking about it and then they ran that particular picture on the Hearing Health magazine; we made the cover. Yeah, so just being in that space was very different. It was the first time that my disability wasn’t enough of a disability and I had not been in a position like that.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, one of my best friends also has what she would consider an invisible disability, which she’s had for, like, her whole life. But I was wondering—if you don’t mind elaborating—what is it to be like in a space that’s supposed to cater to your identity, but having to prove your own belonging in that space? Because that’s something for me that, personally, I’ve always had to do with whatever identity I’ve had. But I was wondering if you don’t mind talking a little bit about that.

Horton:

It’s not a good feeling. I really felt extricated out of it and couldn’t wait for the experience to be over. I don’t attend the meetings. [laughs] I don’t do any of that anymore just because it was just not the best experience. It was weird being in a space that you have to fight to be in that space to be acknowledged.

Hostetter-Habib:

Does that feeling of whatever feeling this brought up also happen in—because I know you’re involved with a lot of disability-rights nonprofits, like Lighthouse Louisiana and Families Helping Families NOLA—is there the same situation in those groups? Or, was it something very unique to AstroAccess?

Horton:

It was very unique to AstroAccess. It was my first time really experiencing it like that. And I wasn’t the only one; the whole group of us that were hearing impaired and deaf were like, “Yo, this is weird.” Like, it’s just not—it was weird being in that space. Like, there was Good Morning America on there, and our little subgroup didn’t even get—the camera didn’t even pan our way. Now, mind you, you’re on a flight, and everyone on that flight has a disability pretty much, except the staff, so not even to pan our way was a little odd for us. So, it was the first time having that experience. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last time having that experience. But what I do know is, it’s not a place that I want to readily just keep going back to. I’m grateful for the experience in 2022. I’m not sure if I would ever apply again though.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah. So then, what has your experience been like serving on the board of directors for Lighthouse Louisiana? Which, it’s a nonprofit that’s mission is to empower people with disabilities through services, employment, and advocacy, I believe; and then also Families Helping Families NOLA.

Horton:

Both of those are amazing experiences, because one of the things was, when I moved back to Louisiana, I actually prayed to God: “I just want to go back to Louisiana because I want to affect my community, my home.” And being back in New Orleans allows me to be a part of the community in such a way that I can affect change, and I really like that part of my life. I like the idea that I’m taking all the wins and the losses that have occurred in my life to be able to help other people have wins, so it makes me feel really good. And being a part of those boards—both of those boards sought me out to be a part of it. With Lighthouse Louisiana, I get to do a lot of the policy, so being able to affect what changes are being put in place for accommodations and things like that is really nice. The fact that we were able to get a voice-activated crosswalk signs for the visually impaired in some areas. Making sure that things are tactile for those that learn that way. Being able to even be a part of changing over activities, like regular science activities, but to make it so that it’s accessible to those who are visually impaired, or those that are harder hearing. I get to have a voice and a say, in my state and in my city, to be able to truly affect change for those who do have a disability, so I really like working on those boards and being a part of that work.

Hostetter-Habib:

How did you originally get involved in these organizations?

Horton:

Both of these organizations sought me out, and it was probably just because of the public voice that I have here.

Hostetter-Habib:

And then about your work as the on the IUPAP, Women in Physics Working Group, and now the new one that you’re on, what has that like been for you? Or, what was that like for you?

Horton:

Actually, both of them are an amazing experience. When you’re working internationally, you are working with people who are from third-world countries, and it constantly helps you regulate what we’re doing here and how blessed we are in our country. And then the idea, though, to watch other countries develop some of the technology, and be able to attend school sometimes, has been amazing. To watch the women in those areas and to listen to what their problems were really made me have to rethink the problems I was having here in our country. It would also give me insight when I would run into my male colleagues from certain countries. Like, I had that previous information and that previous knowledge from the women in those countries, like how they were being treated, so it would definitely help me to understand what to expect from them and that kind of thing.

Hostetter-Habib:

Great. And moving on to your children’s books, as of now I believe you’ve authored three children’s books, which are part of the Dr. H. Explores series. What was the idea behind these? Why did you decide to create these books?

Horton:

The books were born out of a joke, and people laugh at me when I say that. So, a friend of mine had gotten this avatar—which is not an avatar—but she told me she got this avatar. And she was like, “You could have an avatar too.” I was like, “Where’d you get it from?” And she was like, “Oh, this guy made it for me.” So, I went and contacted that guy, paid $175, and got the character which turns out to be the character of the books. All right, so I get this character, and I was like, “This is my bitmoji.” And people were like, “That’s not a bitmoji. Bitmoji is an app.” So, it was crazy, because I didn’t even know what to call it. But it was in all of my presentations, and it was how I was branding my presentations.

One day I was at a conference, and they said, “What are you going to do with that?” And I was like, “I don’t know.” And then God said, “We’re going to write a book.” And I said, “Oh, we’re going to write a book!” And I was shocked, too, that I even said it out loud, right? Like, we’re going to write a book? Because I don’t know nothing about writing a book. I was in my presidency at the time, and a year later people were like, “What are you going to do with it?” And I was like, “Oh, yeah. I’m going to write a book.” And they were like, “When are you going to write this book? When does it come out?” And I literally said, “Oh, it’s coming out at the end of the year.” Like, just said it! And then I was like, “What?!” And I left there that day and figured out how to write a book, and I put some people on a team which started writing. I contacted the guy who created the original character, asked him if he would illustrate the book. He said yes. I contacted another friend of mine who works at Boeing, who’s an artist, and I was like, “Can you do the sketches?” And he was like, “Yes.” And that’s how the book got started. But then people loved it! And we did another book, and we did another book, and I have one more coming out. And I’m not going to be crazy enough to say when this time, [laughs] but we have one more coming out, and we’re moving forward with that one. So, it has been a journey with those books.

And I’ve been doing workshops along the way, which is a Surviving to Thriving workshop, which has been for college students to help them move from that survival mode into a mode that they are thriving. And I’ve been doing that workshop now since 2018, so six years, and I do that regularly in some places. Other places call me in when they want it done. So yeah, that’s how the book came about. The kids absolutely love it. The colors are vibrant; the story is great. The character, which is me, is just having amazing adventures with her very special Volkswagen Beetle—Bouchet Beetle, after Edward Bouchet. He’s got magical powers. So yeah, I’ve really enjoyed the children’s books and the joy that it brings the kids.

Hostetter-Habib:

Because when you say, “I want to write a book,” there’s multiple ways you could go about that, so what made you land on children’s books as the medium for your avatar.

Horton:

No no no! So, that little avatar looked like—it was just me, and it was kiddy-like, and I can’t see that—like, I’m working on a chapter book for teenagers, and the character in that is very human-like. I just thought this one—like, when I did it—I thought this one would resonate with kids more, so we ended up focusing on kids more.

Hostetter-Habib:

Okay. And what has it been like for—because I know when I was growing up, there was very little representation in children’s books, whether that be of different races, or different abilities, or disabilities, of people in STEM. What has the response been like for these books?

Horton:

It’s been amazing. It has been amazing. People talk about how colorful it is, how beautiful it is, just how they are appreciative. They are appreciative of the representation. Because the character represents me, so the character is also hearing impaired. So, to see a child’s eyes light up that there’s a hearing impaired character, whether that child is Black or brown or white, it’s amazing that they can still identify with the character. So, in my heart, I know I’ve done a good thing, and I feel good about that.

Hostetter-Habib:

That’s really nice. The last main section I have in this interview is, I know you’ve mentioned your family several times and how important to you, but what makes family so integral to your life? Just because, as I said earlier, you’ve mentioned them so many times, and that’s not always the case with people. Not everyone’s a family person, but you really seem to be, so I was wondering if you could elaborate more on your relationship with them, on what it brings to your life, et cetera.

Horton:

My family is my place that I get to be a servant. I get to serve them, which brings me joy. That’s part of my love language. My family is also my—it was my safe space, especially with the kids. Going through college, they went through that with me. They had to endure the same level of socioeconomic status that I did at that time, and they really didn’t give me a lot of stress about it. But they were also very supportive, and they’re my biggest cheerleaders right now, my kids are. And then now I’ve got a grandson. My father lives with me. I moved him in during COVID, and he is by far my biggest cheerleader. When I’ve got projects to put together, he works diligently to help me put those projects together. So, when I think about family, it makes me feel good that I know I’m doing something that makes them feel good, something that they could be proud of. We talk about generational curses, and changing the generational curses, and being able to change our own family dynamics; and for me, I’ve been able to do that. So, it’s the place that I get to be the best me—or the worst me, right? And everybody’s still okay.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah. All right, and for my final question, looking back on your life, is there anything you would tell your past self? And vice versa, is there anything you would tell your future self?

Horton:

Telling my past self… Stop goddamn crying so much. [laughs] I would have to tell my past self to stop crying so much. I’d also have to tell my past self that I’m very proud of the way she overcame a lot of circumstances. Telling my future self… Enjoy your 50s; enjoy your 60s; enjoy the life that you’ve built.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, that’s wonderful. And is there anything else we didn’t touch on that you would like to share before we wrap up this interview?

Horton:

When it gets really, really hard, and it doesn’t seem like there’s light at the end of the tunnel, your success is right around the next bend, so keep pushing.

Hostetter-Habib:

All right, well thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to do this. I really, really appreciate it. I will send you the recording of this interview, as well as the transcript, so that you can edit it to your liking afterwards in a couple days, once we get the transcript back. But yeah, just thank you so much, again.

Horton:

Thank you for wanting to talk to me.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, of course! I was doing so much research, and you were just an amazing person, and I really wanted to hear your story from your own voice.

Horton:

Well, I’m glad my story’s out there. Thank you.

Hostetter-Habib:

Yeah, of course.

[End]