Space Exploration Webinar Series: NASA JPL Speaks to Costa Rica

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I organized a series of educational webinars featuring scientists and engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), motivated by the need to provide students with relevant, high-quality educational content during a time of global uncertainty. The initiative consisted of six weekly sessions, beginning on May 1 and concluding on July 24.

The webinar series featured speakers from key NASA JPL missions, including Eric Aguilar, who worked on the Mars 2020 Soil Retrieval Project; Diego Fonseca, a Costa Rican engineer involved in the EMIT satellite; Sun Kang Matsumoto from the Voyager Interstellar Mission; Caroline Beghein from the Mars InSight Lander mission; Marc Raymond, Chief Engineer of Operations and Science; and Lindsay McLaurin from the Europa Clipper mission.

This project was highly successful in bringing Costa Rican students closer to the work of NASA JPL firsthand, offering direct exposure to real-world space missions and professionals actively shaping space exploration. By creating this accessible platform, the initiative helped inspire students and expand their understanding of career paths within the space and aerospace fields.