At the Kennedy Space Center, Soto Toro reviews, designs, builds, and tests engineering designs used in the Space Shuttle and Payload Operations Development Laboratories. The main project he developed was the Advanced Payload Transfer Measurement System. This system measures the spherical coordinates offset between the trunnion and their supports during transfer operations.
Soto Toro was presented with the 2003 "El Premio Coqui" by La Casa de Puerto Rico in Florida for his assistance in the field of science. On November 9, 2003, Soto Toro was named the Grand Marshal of the Puerto Rican Day Parade held in Palm Bay, Florida.
Sixto González
Sixto González (born 1965) is the first Puerto Rican to be named Director of the Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest single dish radio telescope.
González was born Sixto A. González Edick in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Soon after his birth his family moved to the city of Yabucoa. He went to school in Humacao. As a child, he would take things apart and put them back together again. From that he developed a curiosity about the world around him. He graduated with honors (very good grades) from high school.
In 1983, he traveled to Massachusetts and enrolled in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at MIT. González went back home in 1985 and enrolled, studied at the Humacao campus of the University of Puerto Rico to study physics and electronics, earning his Bachelors of Science degree in 1988. While at the university he was able to do research at the Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest single dish radio telescope.
In 1988, González enrolled in the Department of Physics and Center for Space and Atmospheric Sciences at Utah State University. He was able to base his thesis "Radar, satellite, and modeling studies of the low latitude protonosphere" from experiments he performed at the observatory. He completed his PhD in 1994.
Dirk Bach
Dirk Bach (April 23, 1961 – October 1, 2012) was a German television comedian, actor, voice actor and moderator. He is best known as "Pepe" in the German version of Sesame Street ("Sesamstraße").
Bach was born in Cologne, Germany on April 23, 1961 and died on October 1, 2012 in Berlin, Germany from heart failure. Bach was openly gay and had a partner, Thomas. Bach was an activist for LGBT rights.
Beatrice Rosen
Beatrice Rosen, also credited as "Béatrice Rosen" and "Béatrice Rosenblatt", (born November 29, 1984) is an American-French actress.
She was born in 1977 New York City in the United States, although raised in Paris.
Juan R. Cruz
Dr. Juan R. Cruz, Ph.D. (born January 5, 1946) is a Puerto Rican scientist who played a very important role in the design and development of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) parachute.
Cruz was born and raised in Puerto Rico. He has a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, and a Bachelor of Science from MIT university. Both of his degrees are in aerospace engineering. When he was at MIT he was involved with the Monarch and Daedalus human powered airplane teams.
Cruz is a senior aerospace engineer in the Exploration Systems Engineering Branch at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Hw was responsible on the development of entry, descent and landing (EDL) systems for robotic and human missions in space. He was a member of the highly successful Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project that placed two rovers (machines) on the surface of Mars in 2004. The project was focused on the parachute that he designed.
According to Cruz, "There are challenges to testing these parachutes because we can not test it at exactly the right conditions. Earth's atmosphere is the one we have to work with and the Martian atmosphere, air in Mars, is very different, so you have to make adjustments in how you test the parachute".
Cruz is also a member of the Phoenix (Mars 2007), Mars Science Laboratory (Mars 2009), and Crew Exploration Vehicle EDL teams. He was apart of a lot of research on missions to Mars, including robotic airplanes
Antonia Novello
Antonia Coello Novello, M.D., (born August 23, 1944) is a Puerto Rican physician and public health administrator. She was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as fourteenth Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993. Novello is the first woman and first Hispanic to serve as Surgeon General. Novello was married to former U.S. Navy flight surgeon and psychiatrist, Joseph R. Novello.
Novello served as Commissioner of Health for the State of New York from 1999 to 2006.
In 1979, Novello joined the Public Health Service. Her first assignment was as a project officer at the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism and Digestive Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). From 1976, she was a pediatric (doctor for children) at Georgetown University Hospital. During her years at NIH, Novello worked on a Masters of Physical Health degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She finished her degree in 1982.
In 1986, Novello became the Assistant Surgeon General grade in the PHSCC and the Deputy Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In this role, she became interested in children with AIDS.
Novello was a big help in the planning of the Organ Transplantation Procurement Act of 1984. She did this when she was working at the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.
Novello was appointed Surgeon General by President George H. W. Bush. She was the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the position. During her time as Surgeon General, Novello focused her attention on the health of women, children and minorities, (people with little political power). She also focused on underage drinking, smoking, and AIDS. She played an important role in starting the Healthy Children Ready to Learn Initiative. She spoke out often and forcefully (very strong and loud) about illegal underage drinking, and called to the United States Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General to issue a series of eight reports on the subject.
Novello also worked to stop illegal tobacco use by young people. After leaving the position of Surgeon General, Novello stayed in the regular corps of the Public Health Service. She was assigned the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Special Representative for Health and Nutrition from 1993 to 1996.
In 2002, Novello was awarded the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal. She was also presented with the Legion of Merit Medal by the United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. In 2006, she was a finalist for the Hispanic Business magazine Woman of the Year Award in the April 2006 issue.
Lissette Martinez
Lissette Martinez (born 1971), is the lead electrical engineer for the Space Experiment Module program at the Wallops Flight Facility, which is part of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Martinez was born in Brooklyn, New York to Puerto Rican parents. She was raised in Yauco, Puerto Rico where her family had moved when she was still a child. In Puerto Rico she went to school from k-8th grade. When she was in 8th grade, she was given a homework assignment to study the moon which. She spent a lot of time on the roof of her house every night for a month. She wrote down and detailed everything about the moon, the way the moon looked. That report made her interested in the moon.
After she graduated from high school, she studied at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. During her third year as an electrical engineering student she was accepted into the NASA Cooperative Education Program. She was started working at NASA right away. Martinez earned, finished, her degree in electrical engineering in 1993 and was offered a job in NASA.