
Adriana Ocampo
Lead Program Executive, New Frontiers Mission
NASA - Washington, D.C.
NASA - Washington, D.C.
Lead Program Executive, New Frontiers Mission
I oversee three missions under the New Frontiers program: to Pluto, Jupiter, and Bennu.
As a leader on the New Frontiers program, I'm overseeing three missions to Pluto, Jupiter, and to an asteroid named 101955 Bennu, so it's a long day. At around 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. I'm already checking my emails and identifying critical items that need to be done. A big part of my job involves ensuring proper communication between people and teams, and making sure we're on budget. Almost everything NASA does is something no one's ever done before, so we have to be very creative every single day.
Here's the first step for middle school students
When you're young, you're not going to know which path you want to follow. So first, you need to get to know yourself. How can you do that? Go volunteer somewhere! See if you can help out or shadow people in a variety of careers and fields, and see what really catches your eye. You have that inner guide that will tell you which way to go, and will tell you, "You can do this"—that's the voice that you need to follow. I once heard Carl Sagan say, "dreams are maps." Follow those maps.
"A woman from South America isn't going make it at NASA."