Adriana C. Ocampo

Adriana C. Ocampo Uria is a research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she has worked since 1973. Ms. Ocampo was appointed since 1998 to work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters Offices at Washington D.C. During her appointment at NASA Headquarters she will be working at the Office of Space Science and the Office of External Relations as a program executive for Space Science missions with international collaboration, among them it includes missions with the European Space Agency , Russia and Japan. She will also be the Russian (and all the former Soviet Union independent countries), Spain and Portugal desk officer for NASA’s Office of External Relations. Presently she is continue with her responsibilities in the Office of Space Science and is also working in the Office of Earth Science in the Solid Earth and Natural Hazards Division.

Ms. Ocampo completed her Bachelor of Science at California State University of Los Angeles in Geology with an emphasis on Planetary Science. She completed her Master of Science in Geology at California State University Northridge with a thesis on the Chicxulub impact crater. Born in Colombia and raised in Argentina, she arrived in the United States 30 years ago. She came to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CalTech/JPL, NASA center) as a high school student where she had the opportunity to gain experience in planetary science. She worked on the Viking mission to Mars as part of the Imaging Team. She was involved in sequence planning and data analysis of Mars images, specifically planning the observations of the moons Phobos and Deimos and searching for a ring and other satellites around Mars. This work culminated in a NASA publication of a Phobos Atlas, which was used in planning the Phobos Russian mission to that moon.

During the Voyager mission to the outer planets, she worked on the Navigation and Mission Planning Team, which included the development of the Saturn ephemerides. She has also worked at the JPL Multi-mission Image Processing Laboratory where she developed an expertise in image processing applied to Earth and planetary remote sensing. She also worked in Galileo’s Flight Projects Mission Operations as the science coordinator to the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS),. NIMS is an instrument on board the Galileo mission to Jupiter. As a NIMS Science Coordinator in the Galileo mission, she was responsible for Europa’s science observations planning, sequencing and data analysis. She also worked on the Mars Observer Project as the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument science representative. She was a co-investigator in two Discovery proposals; Hermes to explore the planet Mercury and in an Io-Europa Mapper to Jupiter's moons.

In addition to her work with planetary missions, Ms. Ocampo has conducted research on the Chicxulub impact crater since 1988. She was the first to recognize that a ring of sinkholes or "cenotes" found in the Yucatan peninsula was related to the buried impact crater. The Chicxulub impact caused the extinction of more than 50% of the Earth species, including the dinosaurs, at the end of the Cretaceous period (65 million years ago). She was given a NASA grant to continue her research on the effects of the impact on the Earth's biosphere and how those effects relate to the extinction. While conducting field research in Belize in 1991, she discovered the only know surface exposure of the most proximal ejecta blanket from the Chicxulub impact. She has led three geological expeditions to Belize (Jan. 1995, Jan. 1996 and Jan. 1998), sponsored by The Planetary Society (TPS), to study these ejecta deposits. These sites are proving to be important in understanding the role of large impacts in Earth’s history. In 1996 she was co-leader of a TPS expedition to Gubbio, Italy to drill at the original discovery site of impact ejecta at the K/T boundary site.

She has given many scientific lectures on her Chicxulub research including Stanford (1995), Caltech (1995), University of California Berkeley (1995), University of Reno (1996), National Institute of Standard and Technology (1997), Santa Monica City College (1997), University of Oregon (1998), Challenger Center's Annual Flight Director Conference (2000) and numerous professional meetings.

In September 1987 she organized a course in Planetary Sciences that was taught in Mexico City under the sponsorship of The Planetary Society. This course was the first of its kind designed for disseminating Planetary Science to developing countries. This prototype proved so successful that the United Nations, in conjunction with the European Space Agency and The Planetary Society, has funded similar workshops in Costa Rica and Colombia (1992), Nigeria (1993), Egypt (1994), Sri Lanka (1996), Germany (1996), Honduras (1997), Jordan (1999), France (2000) and Mauritius (2001). She is a major force in developing the format and character of these workshops and through them is helping foment scientific and educational cooperation in Space Science between developing and developed countries.

Ms. Ocampo was a principle organizer of the "Space Conference for the Americas: Prospects in Cooperation," which was held March 12-16, 1990, in Costa Rica. The aim of this conference, which was developed in conjunction with the United Nations, was to encourage cooperation in the areas of science and technology for peaceful uses of space among the Pan-American countries to improve the quality of life. Continuing this effort she helped in the organization of the Second Space Conference of the Americas held in Chile in April 1993 and in the third conference held in Uruguay in November 1996. She continues to work in this effort as part of an international advisory board.

She has served on the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) National Board of Directors for five years, first as national secretary and then two consecutive terms as the national vice-president. She has also served as Chair of SHPE's International Affairs Committee, which establishes technical programs of cooperation and university student exchange programs between the US and Mexico. She is a member of The Planetary Society Advisory Council, which aims to disseminate the latest scientific results and excitement for planetary exploration to the generate public.

She is a member of the Association of Women in Geoscience, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Society of Women Engineers where she is a strong supporter of the "shadow program" (which is a mentoring program for young girls), and many other professional organizations. She was a member of JPL’s Advisory Council for Women that reports directly to the Laboratory Director. As a participant of the JPL Speakers Bureau, she has represented NASA-JPL at various Spanish and English speaking engagements locally and abroad promoting space science and engineering. In 1992 she was awarded Women of Year Award in Science by "Comision Femenil" of Los Angeles. In 1994 she was the only scientist selected by JPL to represent the Laboratory at the Leadership Conference for Women in Science and Engineering in Washington DC. She has been featured in the "Latino Pride Calendar," several books including "Science Interactions", "Paramount Publishing Education", and "Women of Hope/Latinas Abriendo Camino" (video and poster) which are all mentoring publications. She was recently feature in the book by the Girl Scout Council "Recipes for Success" and contribute to a Geometry and Secondary Mathematics textbook using the Galileo spacecraft as a vehicle for learning published by (McDougal Littell, Houghton Mifflin Publishing Co.). In November 1996, she was awarded the JPL’s Advisory Council for Women Award for outreach and community work. In September 1997, she received a science and technology award from the Chicano Federation for her contribution to science. In 1998 she was asked to represent NASA in the "Embrace Space" International Advisory Board.

She is a student pilot and has applied to become a Space Shuttle mission specialist.

More information about Adriana and other women who work at JPL can be found at: Women at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.