Over the course of 2024, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory laid off nearly 900 workers due to budget cuts at the agency. The cuts, which came amid delays on the Mars Sample Return program, a mission to collect dust and rocks from the red planet, reduced the lab’s headcount by 13 percent and impacted both technical and support staff. But the jet propulsion laboratory’s chief inclusion officer, Neela Rajendra, survived the cuts. Rajendra, who helped organize a project to recruit women and