After studying mechanical engineering at Rice, Duncan headed to Stanford for a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering—and did “the traditional Stanford thing” of dropping out to join a startup, Capella Space, where he helped launch multiple commercial satellites. He’s been bouncing back and forth between Stanford and other engaging gigs ever since, like leading Amazon’s space operations group. Today, he’s the Executive Director of the Stanford Center for AI Safety. (And he finished his Ph.D.!)

1. What three words best describe Commonwealth? 

Curious, caring, and vivacious. 

2. What is your favorite Commonwealth memory? 

I distinctly remember taking Special Relativity with Farhad Riahi in the winter and freezing my hands off in 1A—but he was just up at the blackboard, teaching away and absolutely loving it. 

3. What was your favorite Commonwealth class? 

Again, Special Relativity; I absolutely loved that. And Mr. Sherry's Geometry class my first year, just because it made math fun again, and it was really cool to see how much sense it all made. 

4. What’s your #1 piece of advice for Commonwealth students?

Keep being curious, keep applying what you've learned at Commonwealth, and keep learning. Education is something that will never fail you, will never let you down, and can never be taken away.

5. What myth(s) would you like to dispel around your work?

There's a lot of fear about space debris and space safety—of Kessler Syndrome and space becoming a junkyard. But that is something that the industry actually takes incredibly seriously, and there's been fantastic cooperation over the last few years to address the challenges of preventing debris creation as well as working towards removing historic sources of debris. 

6. When and how did you first become interested in aerospace engineering? 

A combination of reading a little too much science fiction and wanting to get out of dodge. It was the classic experience of a kid growing up just yearning for what's behind the horizon. I figured, if there’s something I can do today so that someone can someday stand on the bridge of the Enterprise [from Star Trek], I might as well work towards building it.

7. What is your favorite aspect of your career?

The moments along the way that I never expected, like late nights at Capella trying to hit deadlines building the spacecraft or trying to fix the spacecraft on orbit. There were lots of moments where we were writing software in thirty or forty minutes, testing it, and uploading it to the spacecraft hoping it would work—it was real-time engineering at its best. Also, just continuing to learn from great people. 

8. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Don't do anything you don't want to do. That can be taken in a lot of wrong ways, but the way I generally take it is “find what you love, then live life the way that you want to live it.”

9. What does your ideal afternoon entail? 

Recently, I've been really enjoying wrapping up work at 3:00 p.m. to play racquetball with a friend, then coming home to cook dinner and walk in one of the parks around San Francisco.

10. Whom do you most admire? 

My thesis advisor, Mykel Kochenderfer, who is perhaps the nicest human being that has ever existed. He has four kids and somehow manages to make time for all of his students, teaches wonderful classes, mentors a bunch of different people, and is a fantastic researcher. I sometimes feel it’s a little rude how nice he is! 

11. Which word or phrase do you most overuse?

Delightful.

12. How do you define success?

Working on hard problems with good people.

13. What book do you wish you had read sooner?

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman.

14. If you could have dinner with one person—alive or dead—who would it be? 

Farhad Riahi, just to show him where I have come from the classroom and talk physics with him.

15. Coffee or tea?

Yes.

16. What is your favorite paradox? 

The Twin Paradox.

17. What was your go-to Boston eatery?

It was Kashmir on Newbury Street, but it sadly died in the pandemic. 

18. If you could live as a local for 48 hours anywhere in the world, where would you go? 

Tokyo.

19. What is the theme song of your life?

“Family,” by Catey Shaw.

20. What is the best gift you have ever received?

My parents got me an iMac years and years ago—one of the blue bubbles when they first came out. They turned it into a scavenger hunt on Christmas Day, stringing up lights all around the house for me to follow and somehow swapped it into my room. And I spent so many hours on it.

Bonus: What is the best gift you have ever given?

I surprised my mom for her birthday by giving her tickets to a little twelve-person home concert for a local musician, Gordon Bach, that she absolutely loves. 

Double Bonus: What is your motto? 

Stay hungry. Stay curious. Be good.

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