Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
Sandra Cauffman, who has charted a trailblazing career as an engineer at NASA, was born in the central region of Costa Rica in 1962. She and her brother grew in a single-parent home after their mother Maria Jerónima Rojas made the lifesaving decision to leave her abusive husband. Even with their mother holding down two... Continue Reading →
Scientist and NASA astronaut Fernando “Frank” Caldeiro was born in Argentina’s capital city of Buenos Aires on June 12, 1958. As a young immigrant to the United States, however, he regarded both New York City and the Florida community of Merritt Island as his actual hometowns. Caldeiro graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in... Continue Reading →
On June 10, 2021, Nuria I. Fernandez was confirmed by the U.S Senate as administrator of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). This Senate confirmation by voice vote made Fernandez the first Afro-Latina to lead FTA. (An agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation [USDOT], FTA provides both financial and technical assistance to a wide range... Continue Reading →
José Antonio Muñiz, an aviator whose U.S. military career included service in Southeast Asia during World War II, was born on October 16, 1919, in the city and municipality of Ponce on Puerto Rico’s southern coast. He was a student at elementary and secondary schools in Ponce. Muñiz then enrolled at the Ponce-based Colegio Ponceño... Continue Reading →
During a career in the U.S. Navy that spanned nearly four decades, Mery-Angela Sanbria Katson firmly established herself as a trailblazer in that military branch. Katson had been born in Colombia’s capital city of Bogota. In 1970, Katson immigrated with her family to the United States. They ended up residing in the city of New... Continue Reading →
NASA astronaut and U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) pilot George D. Zamka was born to a Colombian mother and Polish father in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1962. Zamka grew up living at one point or another in each of the following places: New York City; the village of Irvington, New York; the city of Medellin,... Continue Reading →
Irene Rico’s longtime career with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began in 1985 when she joined the agency as a highway engineer trainee. She had received a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso the previous year, and would earn her M.S. in civil engineering from the University of New... Continue Reading →
Francisco D. Mercado, Jr., who served in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II, was born in East Los Angeles, California, in 1920. As a Hispanic American, he experienced one of his most egregious encounters with prejudice after graduating from high school in 1939. Having shown both a strong aptitude and interest... Continue Reading →
In the time since she began working for Lockheed Martin Corporation as a senior systems engineer in 2006, Vanessa Aponte Williams has been significantly involved in that company’s initiatives on behalf of human spaceflight. As Lockheed Martin’s senior manager for ascent element mission operations, for example, she oversees the development of integrated systems to help... Continue Reading →
Alfonso Sanchez Bermudez, head keeper of the Isla Caja de Muertos Lighthouse (located just off the coast of southern Puerto Rico), performed a lifesaving action in September 1916 that would earn him a formal commendation. This action involved rescuing a man who, while sailing in the vicinity of the lighthouse, found himself in danger of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 