The countdown to a career at NASA: For one grad, it all began at the Missouri School of Journalism
When you first meet Katherine Herrick, BJ ‘19, at her job, you might not expect the conversation to take place underground. With low-textured ceilings, pale stone walls, and even fluorescent lights added, it still more cave than an office building. The unusual environment, she explains, is actually a Federal Records Center for the National Archives.
And Herrick’s title? She is the communications lead for the IT department at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. She routinely handles event coordination, outreach and internal messaging about IT services. Herrick also supports records management, and her current mission is to appraise NASA’s Challenger collection to prepare it for transfer to the National Archives.
The position might seem like a far cry from her journalism undergraduate degree at Mizzou with an emphasis in magazine journalism. However, Herrick worked at both Vox and the Columbia Missourian as a student. These real-world experiences prepared her to enter the workforce and eventually settle into her current role.
“I definitely feel like my time at the Missourian was really helpful,” Herrick said. “I think just for getting comfortable with interviewing people and branching out and understanding your community.”
Herrick said she also learned invaluable writing and editing skills from her journalism degree, and recalls magazine editing classes with Professor Jennifer Rowe.
“Getting comfortable with AP style, weirdly, has been super valuable in my work at NASA,” Herrick said.
After graduating in 2019, Herrick’s first job was an internship working in public affairs at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“Public affairs is actually where I started, and typically that is where I run into the most journalism people who work at NASA,” Herrick said.
After feeling a desire to expand her skill set beyond her journalism roots, Herrick came back to Mizzou to study library and information science. She was inspired by her passionate experiences in honors humanities classes and encouraged by her college mentor Dr. Rachel Harper to pursue library science.
“I felt like there was a lot of crossover between the goals of librarians and the goals of journalists, so both I see as positions that are trying to do a public service,” Herrick said. “They both aim to educate the public, just kind of in different ways.”
NASA’s IT department, officially called the Office of the Chief Information Officer, also includes archives, records management and library science-related work. As Herrick transitioned from public affairs to the IT realm, she said her combined skills helped her succeed.
“I ended up in my position because of both of my degrees,” Herrick said. “I was super thankful that I had two separate skill sets because it definitely made me more valuable, just having some unique skills to offer and that is absolutely what helped me get my job.”
Herrick’s job still takes advantage of the knowledge she gained from the Missouri School of Journalism and the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies in the College of Education & Human Development.
“I feel like journalism sets a really good foundation where you get so many skills that are very widely applicable,” Herrick said.
When not digging into history or handling internal communications about information technology, Herrick participates in other mission support activities at NASA when she can. For several years, she has been one of the taste testers for Johnson Space Center’s Food Lab. In the role, Herrick samples and reviews new foods before they are prepared for astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
From her own experiences switching from journalism to public affairs to IT communications, Herrick has advice for current J-School students who worry their career path won’t be linear.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out beyond what you’re comfortable with,” Herrick said. “I feel like that’s always a challenging moment to decide to switch to something new…”
But when Herrick looks back, she says it’s the little pieces where you deviate from your path that are the most valuable.
Updated: March 18, 2026