Aracely Quispe Neira

Quispe is a senior astronautical engineer, a leader in Space and Flight Operations at NASA, a senior flight systems operations engineer on the James Webb Telescope project and was part of the team that put it into orbit in 2021 to study the formation of galaxies.

In 2019, she launched and personally funded a project in her native Lambayeque. She visited 20 national schools and brought together nearly 3,500 high school students to motivate them undertake scientific research projects.

In 2016, she entered the James Webb Space Telescope program, in which 17 countries and more than 3,000 scientists have collaborated.

Since 2014 she has headed the following missions: the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that was launched into space in 2021 to replace the Hubble Space Telescope.

In 2014, Quispe started a personal project, AQN (from her name initials Aracely Quispe Neira), that promotes science, technology and engineering (STEM) programs among women and young people in Latin America.

As one of the best students at CapTechU, in 2011 Quispe did her internship at NASA in the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM), starting as a Test Engineer, and later becoming Systems Engineer. After finishing the internship, Aracely won a scholarship to do a Master's degree with a thesis on the melting of glaciers in Cusco, Peru, using NASA satellite images. She has seven academic degrees, including a Master's degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Capitol Technology University, Master's degree in Geospatial Intelligence from the University of Maryland and a Doctorate of Science with honors from Capitol Technology University focused on an investigation of communications security in GPS Satellites from malicious attacks.

In 2011, Quispe applied for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission at the NASA Aerospace agency. She joined the LRO mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center as a systems engineer and in 2014 rose to team leader and the spaceflight operations leader.

Irma Aracely Quispe Neira (born 1982; known as Aracely Quispe) is a Peruvian-American senior astronautical engineer, NASA scientist, academic and researcher. She is known as the first Latin-American woman to lead three successful NASA missions in the United States: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Quispe has been a senior flight operations and systems engineer of the successful James Webb Space Telescope launching. She is an official speaker at the NASA and the United States Department of State, professor at Capitol Technology University, and STEM educator.