Lissette Martinez
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Lissette Martinez (born 1971), is an electrical engineer and rocket scientist. She is the head of th
Wallops Electrical Engineering Branch
and the lead electrical engineer for the Space Experiment Module program at the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) which is part of
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) where she is responsible for the testing of ground and flight hardware. She is a notable alumni at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.


Early life

Martinez was born in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
to Puerto Rican parents. She was raised in
Yauco, Puerto Rico Yauco () is a town and municipality in southern Puerto Rico. Although the downtown is inland, the municipality stretches to a southern coast facing the Caribbean Sea. Yauco is located south of Maricao, Lares and Adjuntas; east of Sabana Grande ...
where her family moved to when she was a child. There, she received her primary and secondary education. When she reached 8th grade, she was given a class assignment to study the
moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
which required her to spend time on the roof of her house every night for a month. She wrote down and detailed every aspect of the way the moon looked. She remembers that as an instrumental factor which inspired her to pursue a career in Space Science.WALLOPS


Education

After she graduated from high school, she applied and was accepted to the
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) or Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (RUM) in Spanish (also referred to as Colegio and CAAM in allusion to its former name), is a public land-grant university in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. UPRM ...
. During her third year as an electrical engineering student, she was accepted into the NASA Cooperative Education Program which allowed her to work with NASA scientist and at the same time earn school credits. In 1993, Martinez earned her Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and was offered a job at NASA.


Career in NASA

Martinez was part of the team that launched a rocket from White Sands, New Mexico to gather information on the
Comet Hale–Bopp Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp discovered Comet Hale–Bopp separately ...
in 1999. She was featured in the November 2002 issue of ''Latina'' magazine.Latina
 She is responsible for providing electrical engineering support to Code 870 Space Experiment Module (SEM) program. She is also responsible for the testing of ground and flight hardware. Martinez works with students around the world, helping them with science experiments that will actually ride along on
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...
missions and blast into space. Martinez continues to work at Wallops Flight Facility located in
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
.


Personal life

She lives with her husband and two sons in
Salisbury, Maryland Salisbury () is a city in and the county seat of Wicomico County, Maryland, United States, and the largest city in the state's Eastern Shore region. The population was 33,050 at the 2020 census. Salisbury is the principal city of the Salisbury ...
.


See also

*
History of women in Puerto Rico The recorded history of Puerto Rican women can trace its roots back to the era of the ''Taíno'', the indigenous people of the Caribbean, who inhabited the island that they called "Boriken" before the arrival of Spaniards. During the Spanish c ...
* List of Puerto Ricans * List of Puerto Rican scientists and inventors *
List of Puerto Ricans in the United States Space Program This is a list of notable Puerto Rican scientists involved in the United States Space Program, also known as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and their contributions to said program. This list is not limited to Puerto Rica ...
* University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez people


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez, Lissette 1971 births Goddard Space Flight Center Puerto Rican scientists Living people NASA people Puerto Rican women scientists