Post by Griffin Museum of Science and Industry

How have you been celebrating #HispanicHeritageMonth? Check out these Latinx innovators to learn about their noteworthy contributions in STEM fields!     📈 The child of Panamanian immigrants, Ursula Burns earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University while also working as a summer intern at Xerox. After completing her master's, Burns moved up through various roles at Xerox, eventually becoming CEO, notably the first Black woman to hold that title in a Fortune 500 company. Burns was named by President Obama to help lead the White House National STEM program in 2009, and in 2010 she was appointed vice chair of the President's Export Council. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and Forbes rated her the 22nd most powerful woman in the world in 2014.  🚀 One of only two men in the world keeping the hope of a future with jet packs alive, Juan Manuel Lozano Gallegos is a self-taught engineer, scientist and pilot. Lozano designed what was, for years, the only commercially available jet pack, or “Rocket Belt.” Since childhood, he has worked with his hands and built a love for disassembling everything and learning how it works. In 1975, Lozano founded Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana (TAM) and began to work with rocket systems propelled with hydrogen peroxide. His daughter, Isabel Lozano is the first woman to fly with a Rocket Belt.    🧬 Despite challenges of discrimination during her career, Molecular Biologist Dr. Lydia Villa-Komaroff is one of the founding members of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. During her postdoctoral research in DNA technology at Harvard University in 1975, Dr. Villa-Komaroff helped discover how to generate insulin from bacterial cells, becoming the first author of this innovative finding. Today, insulin users are still benefitting from the discoveries that she helped pioneer.    #HHM2021 #RepresentationMatters #DiversityinSTEM #Innovation