2022 UArizona Commencement Speaker Dante Lauretta

LPL's Dante Lauretta delivered the UArizona commencement address on May 13, 2022. Professor Lauretta graduated from UArizona in 1993 with a Bachelor of Science in physics and mathematics and a Bachelor of Arts in Oriental studies with an emphasis in Japanese He earned his Ph.D. in Earth and planetary sciences in 1997 from Washington University. He is Principal Investigator of the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission.

In his speech to graduates, Lauretta advised students to "say yes" to unexpected opportunities in their upcoming careers. Lauretta said a series of yeses led him to unexpected opportunities – and eventually to the helm of the United States' premier mission to collect a sample from a potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid and bring that sample back to Earth. While this year's graduates' journeys will look different from his, Lauretta said, they should still watch out for their own opportunities to say yes. "You will know in your heart when such an opportunity presents itself," said Lauretta. "When it crosses your path, take chances, take risks and say yes to the invitations that call to you," he said.

Interspersed throughout Lauretta's speech, video clips showcasing OSIRIS-REx's biggest milestones played on the stadium's big screens. And before he shared tales of overcoming the monumental challenges that come with space exploration, Lauretta took graduates back to a time they could relate to a bit more.

Lauretta's first yes, he said, came one day in 1992, after a long shift as a short-order breakfast cook – before Lauretta, then a math, physics and East Asian studies major at UArizona, even knew planetary sciences was a discipline. He opened an issue of The Daily Wildcat, the university's student newspaper, to find a full-page ad emblazoned with, "Work for NASA." He applied and was accepted to NASA's Space Grant internship program, launching him into a career of yeses, he said.

The next significant yes, Lauretta said, was in 2004, when he received a phone call from Michael J. Drake, then the director LPL. Drake asked Lauretta to join him and some executives from Lockheed Martin to discuss a partnership on a new space mission. That mission was OSIRIS-REx, which would go on to launch in 2016, arrive at near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2018 and collect a sample in 2020. Now on its return journey, it is expected to deliver the sample to Utah's West Desert in September 2023. The sample will likely yield fundamental knowledge about the origin of terrestrial planets and strategies to avoid potential asteroid impacts on Earth.

While the mission's successes are clear in hindsight, it was tough to say yes, at the time, to the opportunity that ended up defining his career, Lauretta told the graduates. Drawing up the mission plans and finding funding would be a monumental task, and it could all get canceled at any moment. But he couldn't shake the notion that he could play a role in answering some of humanity's toughest questions: "Where did we come from?" "Are we alone in the universe?" The urge to help find those answers, he said, was too strong for him to say no. Lauretta encouraged graduates to not overlook moments like these.

"On your journeys, remember that big things come from these small moments," he said. "I said yes to applying to the NASA Space Grant program. I said yes to joining Mike on the mission – even when it seemed like magic, like we were wizards trying to summon stones from outer space into our laboratories. By simply saying yes to what presented itself, I found myself at the helm of one of history's greatest scientific expeditions."

Lauretta urged the graduates to reflect on their time in college, imagine their paths ahead and understand that they are not alone. He asked them to take in their surroundings at the ceremony and to recognize that "this is your moment." Even after graduation, they won't stop learning, he assured them.

"It will be the opportunities along the way that you say yes to, the diverse people you meet, the mentors you seek to support (you), the invitations you accept and the challenges you embrace that will lead you toward your destiny and provide for you a much deeper understanding of how it all comes together, how it all fits, just by saying yes," he said. "Stop and take it all in," he added. "These are all the results of yes."