Katya Echazarreta (1996 - Present)
Mexican-American Electrical Engineer
Katya Echazarreta is an electrical engineer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and was the first Mexican-born woman to travel to space. Out of nearly 7,000 applications from over 100 countries, Echazarreta was chosen as the sixth passenger on the New Shepard, owned by Blue Origin.
At the age of seven, Echazarreta and her family migrated to the United States and began their new lives in San Diego, California. After graduating high school, Echazarreta went to San Diego City College, a community college, where she studied electrical engineering. In her junior year, she transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she continued her education. While attending, she completed an internship at NASA. Upon graduating and earning her Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, she began working full-time at NASA. There, she has worked over five missions.
Today, she continues to work full-time as an electrical engineer at NASA and part-time as a student pursuing her Master’s at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Echazarreta also has a social media presence, most notably on her YouTube channel and Instagram account "KatVoltage," where she shares her experiences working at NASA.
“If there’s something that you truly, truly want to do, it’s very important not to let those voices around you tell you that you’re not good enough.” - Katya Echazarreta
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