Sustainability grad brings a systems mindset to space
Kennedy Gourdine, dressed in her graduation regalia, shows off her grad cap to the full-scale model of the Mars rover, Curiosity, on display in the School of Earth and Space Exploration building, ISTB4, on the Tempe campus. Courtesy photo
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable spring 2025 graduates.
Kennedy Gourdine arrived at Arizona State University with a clear sense of purpose. She knew she wanted to study sustainability, and she knew she wanted to make a difference. What she didn’t expect was how her passion for the planet would lead her to the future of space.
This spring, Gourdine graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in sustainability from the School of Sustainability in the College of Global Futures, with a minor in urban planning. Since her freshman year, she has also worked as a student employee at the ASU Interplanetary Initiative, where she helped support events, assisted with research administration, and contributed to student engagement and public outreach. That experience opened the door for her to explore how sustainability principles, like justice, systems thinking and long-term impact, apply to life beyond Earth.
“I am definitely a different person from when I walked in,” Gourdine said. “I'm more of an advocate for myself and more confident in my ability to create change.”
Through her role with the Interplanetary Initiative, she joined Space for Humans, a YouTube series exploring how space science connects to life on Earth. Gourdine starred in several episodes, including one on food safety and another on satellite surveillance.
“The things that scared me helped me grow,” she said. “I just thought about it ... you're in this space for a reason, someone believes in you, so let their confidence in you push you forward, and push you to do this. ... It's going to happen anyways, so might as well have this new experience.”
Her drive to communicate and collaborate extended to hands-on research projects. As a participant in the Interplanetary Initiative’s SpaceHACK for Sustainability, she worked on a team using satellite data to explore how wildfire risks are distributed across income levels. She also brought her perspective to the NASA BIG Idea Challenge, joining the ASU Luminosity Lab in developing a low-mass, inflatable pad to reduce dust and debris during lunar landings. The ASU team won the Best Systems Engineering Award. Gourdine contributed to sustainable material and design decisions, business development and photography.
She also participated in the Interplanetary Initiative’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, contributing to the DEIA service model project focused on how space organizations can better reflect the broad range of humanity. The research pushed her to think critically about how to create meaningful change in our communities.
“I want to work with communities, meeting them and understanding where they are at and coming from, while also learning how to be a global citizen,” she said.
Her academic work helped ground that approach. Gourdine credits Associate Teaching Professor Jason Kelly with deepening her interest in urban planning.
“He's the reason I stuck with the urban planning minor and truly fell in love with it,” she said.
And a course called “Energy in Everyday Life” helped her grow more confident with math and problem solving.
“It really just got me to think in different ways and just think about how to solve a problem,” Gourdine said.
A global perspective also came through her time in the Frasier Global Mentorship Program, where she attended a weeklong planetary citizenship workshop in Paris.
“It was all about learning how to become a planetary citizen,” she said. “It was insightful to see what are the similarities and differences between life as we experience it in the U.S. — what we're worried about and what they're worried about.”
The experience, she said, gave her hope that the sustainability conversations happening in the U.S. can lead to real, lasting changes.
As she graduates, Gourdine reflects on how the unfamiliar became her greatest teacher: “Try something uncomfortable. That’s how you grow.”
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