You made it. You’re a successful engineer at a prestigious organization. What do you do now? Zaida Hernandez decided to help other underrepresented groups get into engineering through her social media platform, The Space Latina. She tells us how she went from looking up at the stars during visits to rural El Salvador to working on sending humans to the moon in the Artemis program.

Zaida Hernandez also known as “The Space Latina,” is a spacecraft engineer and subsystem manager at NASA supporting the Artemis missions. She has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and Master’s in Industrial Engineering. She is a first generation college graduate in her family. She is also a children’s book author of space themed STEM books.

• Getting into engineering via building with Legos
• Houston - Space City
• Seeing the stars in the night sky of El Salvador
• Finding your way toward engineering
• Getting an internship at NASA as a high schooler
• What kind of job does a high schooler even do at NASA?
• The fear and anxiety of being a new professional
• From intern to professional engineer
• Thermal engineering
• Working on the Artemis mission
• NASA is just one space industry company
• Private space companies…good or bad?
• Safety culture at NASA
• With so many problems on earth, is space exploration worth it?
• How NASA celebrate mission successes
• Bringing more diversity to the space industry
• How can underrepresented professionals show up for students?
• Tips on finding internships
• Can you do both STEM and writing?
• Creating bilingual STEM books for children!

Show Resources:

• The Space Latina On Instagram
• Zaida Hernandez on LinkedIn
• Books by Zaida
  • Space Espacio: Coloring Book + Fun Facts
  • My First Space Words in English and Spanish
  • Luz Lucero, niña astronauta
• NASA Spinoffs
• Artemis Mission
• Frank Rubio
• Lil’ Libros

Music:

“Viento Solar” by Akumal