L. Diana Trujillo
L. Diana Trujillo
Diana Trujillo is the 108th Flight Director in NASA's history -- and the first born in a Spanish-speaking country. Under the callsign “Somos Flight,” she and her fellow Flight Directors lead NASA's Mission Control Center during all of the agency's human spaceflight missions, including ongoing operations of the International Space Station, the Artemis missions returning humans to the Moon and onward to Mars, and flights of Dragon, Cygnus, and Starliner.
Prior to her current position, Trujillo played a key role in three landmark robotic missions to Mars: Curiosity, Perseverance, and Ingenuity. Over the course of fourteen years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she held a number of leadership roles on those missions, including Flight Director, Mission Lead, Deputy Project System Engineer, Deputy Team Chief of Engineering, and Robotic Arm Science phase lead.
Born and raised in Colombia, Trujillo immigrated to the United States at the age of 17 to pursue what she had been told was an impossible dream: working for NASA. She enrolled in English as a Second Language courses, working full-time to support her studies at Miami-Dade Community College, where her academic performance provided her the opportunity to earn a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland, with additional studies at the University of Florida. While an undergrad, Trujillo also participated in the NASA Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's premiere leadership training and research program for students.
After graduating, she worked at Orbital Sciences Corporation, helping win a $170 million contract from NASA to develop the Cygnus cargo spacecraft -- a vehicle that has now successfully conducted twenty missions to resupply the International Space Station.
In addition to her technical roles at JPL, Trujillo also created and hosted #JuntosPerseveramos, NASA’s first ever Spanish-language broadcast of a major mission, which was viewed live by a global audience of millions.
Trujillo is a passionate advocate for diversity in STEM, having pushed for more inclusion of the Latinx community everywhere from the White House to the educational program Plaza Sésamo (Sesame Street). She has also served on boards of the Brooke Owens Fellowship, the Columbia Memorial Space Center, and the Children’s Center at Caltech.
In 2021, she was awarded the Cruz de Boyacá, the highest honor Colombia awards to civilians.
Trujillo lives near Houston, TX with her husband and their two children.