Maria Fernanda Mora

Maria Fernanda Mora is an Argentinian chemist working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). She is developing miniaturized techniques to look for signs of extraterrestrial life on space missions. Alejandra Rodríguez Abaunza spoke with Mora about the quirks of working at NASA and about what it means to be a Latina in science. This interview was edited for length and clarity. Alejandra Rodríguez Abaunza: How is NASA different from other labs you’ve worked in? Maria Fernanda Mora: The best part is that JPL is more interdisciplinary than academic life. I did my undergrad and PhD in chemistry labs, and we would have weekly seminars for the students. Even if it was in a different field of chemistry, you still understood most of the stuff they were talking about. But when I came here, I didn’t understand the things that they were talking about in the seminars. It was a