Lissette Martinez

Lissette Martinez (born 1971), is the lead electrical engineer for the Space Experiment Module program at the Wallops Flight Facility, which is part of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Lissette Martinez

Life

Martinez was born in Brooklyn, New York to Puerto Rican parents. She was raised in Yauco, Puerto Rico where her family had moved when she was still a child. In Puerto Rico she went to school from k-8th grade. When she was in 8th grade, she was given a homework assignment to study the moon which. She spent a lot of time on the roof of her house every night for a month. She wrote down and detailed everything about the moon, the way the moon looked. That report made her interested in the moon.

Education

After she graduated from high school, she studied at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. During her third year as an electrical engineering student she was accepted into the NASA Cooperative Education Program. She was started working at NASA right away. Martinez earned, finished, her degree in electrical engineering in 1993 and was offered a job in NASA.

Work

Martinez was part of the team that launched a rocket from White Sands, New Mexico to gather information on the Hale-Bopp Comet, a comet. She is responsible for providing, giving electrical engineering support to Code 870 Space Experiment Module (SEM) program. She is also responsible for the testing of ground and flight hardware. Martinez works with students around the world, helping them with science experiments that will actually ride along on Space Shuttle missions and blast into space. Martinez continues to work at Wallops Flight Facility located in Virginia. She lives with her son in Salisbury, Maryland.