ALD21: Olga González-Sanabria, Chemical Engineer

Olga González-Sanabria

Olga González-Sanabria is a Puerto Rican chemical engineer who developed the long cycle-life nickel-hydrogen batteries that have been used on the International Space Station, the Hubble telescope and Mars Odyssey.

González-Sanabria worked as the Director of Engineering at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, responsible for engineering design and development, fabrication, systems engineering and integration, and systems analysis.

Originally from Patillas, Puerto Rico, she started her academic career at the University of Puerto Rico. She earned her master’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Toledo in Ohio.

Over the three decades that she worked for NASA she earned several awards, the most notable being the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. In 2021 she was inducted into the NASA Glenn Research Center Hall of Fame for her lifetime achievements, and was the highest-ranking Hispanic at NASA Glenn. Now retired from NASA after 32 years service, she currently works as a consultant.

You can follow her work here:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/olga-gonzalez-sanabria-7100371a

Further reading

Posted in Ada Lovelace Day 2021.