Sixto González

Sixto González (born 1965) is the first Puerto Rican to be named Director of the Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest single dish radio telescope.

Sixto Gonzalez

Life

González was born Sixto A. González Edick in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Soon after his birth his family moved to the city of Yabucoa. He went to school in Humacao. As a child, he would take things apart and put them back together again. From that he developed a curiosity about the world around him. He graduated with honors (very good grades) from high school. In 1983, he traveled to Massachusetts and enrolled in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at MIT. González went back home in 1985 and enrolled, studied at the Humacao campus of the University of Puerto Rico to study physics and electronics, earning his Bachelors of Science degree in 1988. While at the university he was able to do research at the Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest single dish radio telescope.

In 1988, González enrolled in the Department of Physics and Center for Space and Atmospheric Sciences at Utah State University. He was able to base his thesis "Radar, satellite, and modeling studies of the low latitude protonosphere" from experiments he performed at the observatory. He completed his PhD in 1994.