Under the night sky, a girl lies back in her garden. Her dark hair spills over the grass growing among lily of the valley; her eyes fill with the glittering dance of the stars while she shelters in existential questions. What is the universe made of? How do the stars shine? How does everything coexist up there in harmony? For many, these questions — so large and so unsettling — are a source of unease. For her, they were a safe place: the place where she finds peace in the middle of chaos. A chaos that, in the Cali of the ’80s and ’90s, flooded everything with blood, violence, and uncertainty. And in the middle of that, a girl found hope inside science. All thanks to those nights of deep curiosity.
“Lady Diana” — the name the women in her family chose, based on the idea that she would go beyond their own expectations, becoming the first in that group of women in the family to go far and fulfill her own dreams. Dreams that seemed thousands of light-years from her reality. In Cali there was no NASA, no mapped path to that destination. How could she become what she so longed to be? How to become a space warrior princess, just like her heroine Leia Skywalker?
The road would not be simple, and reaching her goal would mean navigating monumental difficulties. Fighting the limits imposed on her because of her gender — and even fighting herself. A difficulty very common among girls around the world. UNESCO makes this clear in studies concluding that girls tend to lose interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, largely because of gender roles. The picture goes deeper still: the reasons of gender run beneath what is visible. Girls decide to leave this path in the sciences because their parents and teachers tell them they are not smart enough or capable enough for roles defined as masculine; because the support they receive is less than that given to their male peers; and because they lack role models — another factor that shapes whether girls approach or continue their vocation. Gender-biased stereotypes are lethal to girls developing their dreams and becoming conscious of seeking, at all costs, the growth of their intellectual abilities, limiting their formation as leaders. All of this causes girls to abandon their path, losing space in science, so the vicious cycle continues and reaffirms the idea that only a few make it. This becomes even clearer when one understands that the “U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that technology professionals will see the highest growth in number of jobs between now and 2030, and that only a fraction of girls and women are likely to pursue careers that would allow them to fill those positions.”
That is why it is essential that girls and women know the stories of figures like Diana Trujillo. These girls need to understand that there is no reason to feel alone before the challenges, because those leaders who made it also faced difficulties, also thought they would fail, also felt frustration, and were also besieged by fear — leaders who, even in moments of vulnerability and uncertainty, held the certainty that they would reach the goal. The stories of these women, like Diana Trujillo, are the compass rose charting the destiny of many girls. Diana knows this well; that is why she calls out to women: “I am here to remind you that we women matter. That… it is not that I am special for being able to leave home and survive machista violence; it is because I tried to redirect my life. And I also want you to consider that if there are moments when we are afraid, there are moments when you don’t even know what is going to happen to you because you are petrified. But then it is up to you and to God to define who you are and who you are going to become. It does not depend on anyone else.”
Diana — as if that Wonder Woman name were her destiny — is described by her mother, María Patricia Venegas, as persistent, disciplined, and with the soul of a leader. Her great faith, love, and passion for her longings are what allowed her to leave her hometown and arrive in Miami with 300 dollars in her pocket. There, Diana turned the impossible into the possible through effort, boldness, work, talent, perseverance, and courage. For her, the challenging journey from Cali to NASA trained her to make decisions, find solutions, and lead missions. Everything she lived — from her grandmother and mother who taught her independence, to her grandfather with whom she practiced math in his little shop — brought her to this place. That is why, with time, she sees clearly that without the winding road, she would not be where she is now.
Diana’s life is a constant breaking of paradigms, labels, and obstacles, but it is also that proverb made flesh: “Success is preparation and opportunity when they meet.” Her time in college, like her whole path, was marked by ingenuity: to rest a while from English classes, she would look in the library for someone to help with math. Mathematics is the language that has contributed most to her success — a universal language that needs no translation, that opened doors Diana had found closed, and that allowed her to receive a scholarship to transfer to a university and study Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. When Diana was finishing her degree, a professor advised her to apply for a summer internship with the NASA Academy. Diana tried, along with some 3,000 other applicants, and was among the 18 selected — becoming the first Hispanic migrant woman admitted. That last stretch of the road, before reaching her beloved NASA, led her to finish her studies at the University of Maryland while working on the Cygnus International Space Station resupply vehicle, later joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.
Even after Diana consolidated her dreams, she has not stopped walking inside NASA, where she is currently Flight Director of the Artemis program. She has been Mission Chief of the Mars Curiosity Rover, Deputy Project Systems Engineer, and Deputy Chief of Engineering Operations on Curiosity. Across 67 years of spaceflight careers, there have been 108 flight directors. She is the first Hispanic migrant woman to hold the role. She was chosen for her broad experience in leadership posts, with 10 to 15 years of operations experience and the ability to work under pressure — essential requirements for the position. For now the woman from Cali has set her sights on more visits to the Moon, but she holds the great dream of taking a crew to Mars.
Her achievements have been recognized by many. In 2021 the Hispanic Heritage Foundation awarded her the STEM recognition alongside her peers Christina Hernández and Clara O’Farrell, for their important contribution to the Perseverance Mars 2020 Rover mission. In 2017 she was honored as one of the 22 MÁS by the Embassy of Colombia in the United States; that same year she received the Bruce Murray Award for excellence in education and public outreach. Also in 2021 she was decorated by the Congress of Colombia with the Policarpa Salavarrieta Order of Merit, and was granted, for her service to the nation and to humanity, Colombia’s most emblematic decoration: the Order of Boyacá.
The story of Diana Trujillo Pomerantz is the story of a woman who decided not only to be what she was told she should be, but understood that she could be everything she wanted to be. A woman, now married and with children, who shows that women are the most wasted human resource on the planet — and that it should not be necessary to choose between a family life and making dreams real. Now decorated, leading important programs, building robots, controlling missions, taking crews to the Moon, transmitting her passion for science and technology through books, educational videos, and arduous collaboration with foundations: the girl who longed to explore space, whom they named Lady Diana so she would be the first to achieve great things, is not the first to have done so. At her side are the women of her family who, with every step Diana has taken, have also managed to leave the Cali of blood and stand now among the stars. Women who, by raising a girl who seemed to have everything against her to expect the best of her, have changed lives. Diana is also one of those women now — lying on the grass, singing songs and exploring the constellations with her son, who without doubt, like his mother, will go beyond his own expectations.
Sources
https://www.getepic.com/app/read/36402 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV5Lci1HlDI https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mars-perseverance-team-members-to-be-recognized-at-hispanic-heritage-awards https://www.independentespanol.com/tv/destacados/espacio-profundo-latinos-nasa-artemis-b2160364.html https://www.telemundo31.com/noticias/local/conoce-a-algunos-hispanos-que-trabajan-en-la-historica-mision-artemis-i-de-la-nasa/2145175/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXbzgi41dSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiU-ANatbdU https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXR757nNWDE0_k9-dNI2pQP825Tu8vSGH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sweQj0MwpLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCKRNOnQAI https://ncwit.org/ https://technolochicas.org/ https://news.microsoft.com/es-xl/features/por-que-las-ninas-pierden-interes-en-stem-una-nueva-investigacion-tiene-algunas-respuestas-y-que-podemos-hacer-al-respecto/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upLM5yGVKLg