NASA MUST Scholar Spotlight

NASA MUST Scholar Spotlight

Rigoberto Lopez Jr.

2009 - 2010 MUST Scholar

An image of Rigoberto in the Simulator

 "Growing up my parents set education as my top priority.  Since they had not been to college, they wanted to make sure that I had everything that I needed to become successful academically. I feel it is my duty to reach this goal in order to show my parents how grateful I am for all that they have done for me. In addition, I feel that as a minority student I have to go above and beyond earning my degree, and influence others to strive for a better education as well.

To reach this goal I decided to pursue two disciplines that have always interested me: math and outer space. I want to become an engineer so that one day I may become an astronaut and go to the moon. After deciding on this career path, I looked for ways that were going to help me get to where I wanted to go. I enrolled in the Pre-Freshman Engineering Program (PREP), where I learned what an engineer does on a day to day basis. My participation in PREP helped me obtain an acceptance letter from the Texas Academy of Math and Science (TAMS), where I finished my last two years of high school and first two years of college simultaneously. Through the TAMS program I was able to intern at the NASA Johnson Space Center, where I developed online lessons for the Distance Learning Group and had the opportunity to ride in the shuttle simulator with the Hubble Crew. I graduated with 80 credit hours and am now attending Texas A&M University, majoring in Mechanical Engineering.

It is a great honor for me to be called a NASA MUST Scholar. I have learned many valuable skills needed for the workplace at the MUST Symposium. The MUST scholarship has opened doors for my academic development; the program has helped me with my work in robotics through the internship that I was awarded with the scholarship. I plan to intern at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California and work with the ATHLETE robot, and then intern for NASA every summer until graduation. Ultimately I will earn a Master’s degree in engineering. Afterward, I intend to work in robotics and begin astronaut training. I want to go to the moon when NASA launches its return in 2020."