From Puerto Rico to NASA: Shamir Maldonado-Rivera’s inspiring journey

(WJW) – It’s a steady hum . One that you would just put out of your mind if you worked around the clean room at NASA Glenn.

The things made inside need to be free of any contamination. And that means ANY contamination! Dandruff to tiny particles from a shoe could change the materials’ properties because the sensitive electronics made inside these rooms might one day do wonders.

“We have pressure sensors for high temperatures where we are monitoring aircraft, we have things for future science missions for planet Venus for example.” Shamir Maldonado-Rivera said.

For the 27-year-old engineer, working for NASA became a goal from the time she was in elementary school and found that she was good at science and math. And her family found out that one should never underestimate the determination of a little girl who didn’t want to play with just toys!

“I was only like eight or nine years old and my mom was like, ‘What you want a telescope you’re so little.’ So I got it and I remember spending my time in the night looking at the moon and the craters in the moon at all that,” Shamir said.

In school, Shamir said she devoured science and wanted to go to NASA to work with nanotechnology after meeting scientists that worked in the field.

Although she faced challenges as one of the few women studying physics in her college, she earned a degree in Applied Physics from the University of Puerto Rico.

But no matter what goals you may have there are sometimes things that get in the way — and for Shamir she had one big obstacle still to overcome.

“When I came to the U.S. I didn’t know any English and when I let my mom know I was coming, she said, ‘But you don’t know any English and I was like I’ll figure it out and that’s always my motto: ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll figure it out.'” Shamir said.

And Shamir figured it out — big time– by just going for it!

Like science, she immersed herself in English classes. She also watched tons of media like movies and tv shows; translating the words on the screen.

At the same time, she was trying to find her first job and after a few months landed one working as an engineer in Washington D.C. And after a few years, she made it to her dream job at NASA making future tech inside a high-tech clean room.

And now she has added a second job for NASA; as one of the Spanish voices of NASA’s traveling science exhibits

“When I was growing up, NASA didn’t have a Spanish continuity that I could understand the concepts of the things that they were doing, and now using my voice we are able to translate those concepts, those hard concepts into a more simple language for Hispanic communities to understand,” Shamir said.

And by building that understanding Shamir hopes that when people hear her voice and she talks in person to children, especially young girls, she wants them to also know that if they have the will and desire to learn they can and just like she did– figure it all out.

She wants them to also be that little kid with the telescope and big ideas.

“Just keep pushing, just keep pushing, no matter what, no matter the language, no matter the covid because I came during the covid, the covid-time, no matter being broke and I think that’s the biggest thing, just keep pushing,” Shamir said.

If you would like to find out more information about NASA’s Spanish Language programming, CLICK HERE .

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