Diana Trujillo: NASA's Flight Director of Mars Perseverance Is a Female Colombian Immigrant

By Mary Anne Webber First Posted: Mar 01, 2021 07:57 PM EST

Diana Trujillo was 17-years-old when she immigrated to the United States from Colombia with only $300 and not speaking any English. She worked housekeeping jobs to pay for her studies when in 2007 she decided to join the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA's Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars last week with Trujillo as its flight director on the mission. Trujillo said that it took her some time to process that it had arrived on another planet, according to a CBS News report.

She added that it was when she was watching the image that she actually processed that they had actually landed.

Trujillo's NASA Career and Roots

Trujillo is now part of NASA in Jet Propulsion Lab. She worked on the team that created that robotic arm that is responsible for the collection of rock samples on Mars.

Trujillo said that the ultimate question is understanding if we are alone in the universe. She hoped that within one year of surface operations on the red planet, this can be answered.

Trujillo is one of the few Hispanic women working in the same field, saying that she has not forgotten her roots and that it helped her get to the top of the aerospace field, according to a People report.

In addition, she said that being an immigrant motivates her to always give her best, especially that she came in a country that had limited opportunities.

"I was born and raised in Colombia. There was a lot of violence going on in my country, so for me, looking up at the sky and looking at the stars was my safe place," Trujillo was quoted in a report.

Trujillo said that part of the reason that she wanted to get into the space field was to prove some of her family members wrong, saying that she wanted her family members, particularly the males, to recognize that women add value.

Back in college, Trujillo said she did not know what major she would declare at the University of Florida. It was when she reached the dean and saw a magazine that had images of a female astronauts that she chose aerospace engineering as a major.

Meanwhile, the Perseverance mission will last one year on Mars, which is considered two Earth years. It aims to start touring the crater and collecting samples that could be brought back to Earth, according to The Times Hub.

Representing Her Heritage

Trujillo said throughout her career she stood out being a Hispanic woman. She said that now, she knows that whenever she is working as one of the surface flight directors for Perseverance, she is representing more than herself.

Trujillo said she is representing her country, her culture, her heritage, and her people, which encourages her to give her best every single time.

"I get to elevate and amplify my culture and all the countries that speak Spanish by sending a message to everybody that we're here, we're present," she was quoted in a report.

Hispanics comprise only eight percent of the STEM workforce, with women only accounting for two percent of it, according to the Student Research Foundation.

Trujillo said she believes that this theme could be broken by having more role models, which is one that influenced her decision to be the host of NASA's first Spanish language broadcast for planetary landing.