Career Spotlight: Robotics Engineer

In 7th grade, after reading a newspaper article about female engineers at NASA, Maria Bualat knew that was what she wanted to do when she grew up. Fast forward to today, and now Maria is a robotics engineer at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA where she develops robotics systems for space exploration. Her main project at the moment is Astrobee-- a free flying robot for the International Space Station. It’ll help astronauts in the space station and measure the quality of the air there.
As the deputy group lead for the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames, she does the high level thinking, and mostly works on project management and systems engineering. This means she sets the goals and direction of the project and coordinates with different teams and engineers to make sure the project is successful.
To get here, she earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, and was hired right out of school. She continued her education and earned a master’s degree also in electrical engineering with an emphasis in controls while simultaneously working at NASA. For students interested in a career in science or engineering, she recommends cultivating good communication and writing skills.