I was always drawn to teachers who made class interesting. In high school, I enjoyed my American and English literature classes because my teachers, Jeanne Dorsey and Dani Barton, created an environment where interaction was important.

I was born in 1958, the same year NASA was established, which I like to think of as not a coincidence. I was 11 when they landed on the moon, Apollo Eleven. And, of course, everybody in the whole world was watching that. But I can tell you, at that time, nobody ever asked a girl, 'Is that something you want to grow up and do?'

We are involved in technology development for, you know, missions that we hope to plan that would take us to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.

I think of it as a good opportunity to let, in particular, school kids know that this job and other interesting jobs in science and engineering are open to anyone who works hard in school and gets a good education and studies math and science. And that it's not just for a select group of people.

Education is what allows you to stand out

Usually, girls weren't encouraged to go to college and major in math and science. My high school calculus teacher, Ms. Paz Jensen, made math appealing and motivated me to continue studying it in college.

That's what we want to do here at Johnson Space Center. I think what we have always brought to NASA and brought to the country is trying to push the boundaries, trying to go to the next level.