Sergio Santa Maria: Meet the prominent Peruvian biologist who works for NASA | Peruvians Abroad | the answers

Abigail Brewer 2 years ago 3 min read

a Peru at NASA. Sergio Santa Maria It is prominent Peruvian biologist Which integrates several National Aeronautics and Space Administration projects United State. Born and educated in Peru. After that, his desire to grow in his career led him to go abroad.

Santa Maria studied biology at Caetano Heredia Private University (UPCH). Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the New York University School of Medicine. For this reason, we tell you how he emerged as a scientist in the North American country.

Who is Sergio Santa Maria, the Peruvian biologist who works for NASA today?

Sergio Santa Maria He studied at San Agustin School. From his youth he was interested in science. In the last years of his student days, he considered preparing to study medicine. However, he leaned toward what he enjoyed most: biology.

This is how he got in UPCH To train a biologist. As revealed in an interview with Modesto Montoya in 2020, from the very beginning he had the support of his parents. After completing his undergraduate degree, he applied to various universities in the United States to continue his studies.

Thus he got the proposal to be a graduate research assistant, in the medical field, at the University of Texas. He joined the Department of Biochemistry, where he obtained his Ph.D. According to the information on the website, he worked as a researcher between 2003 and 2008 and delved into the study of “DNA repair, replication, and mutations.”

Sergio Santa Maria has been working at NASA since 2014. Photo: Andes

Subsequently, he became a postdoctoral fellow at the New York University School of Medicine. Between 2009 and 2013, he studied the role of various motor proteins in DNA recombination and repair, as well as related topics.

How did Sergio Santa Maria get started working at NASA?

during his time in University of Texas, had the opportunity to do a rotation at the NASA Radiation and Biophysics Laboratory for three months. “I liked it a lot (his first experience at NASA), but I still had an F1 visa as a student,” he declared in an interview with Montoya in 2020. In addition, he was offered to get a doctorate in this place, but for various reasons I decided to do it in Texas.

A few months later, when he was finishing school in New York, he applied for a job where professionals were sought to investigate space biosensors.

After entering, he had the opportunity to talk to the person in charge of the project and was invited to join NASA.

to enter Container, Most of them enter as contractors, not federal employees. They were subcontracted,” the Peruvian scientist explained about his experience in the aforementioned dialogue.

In the final process, he competed with four people, but in the submission process, according to him, there were no less than 700 scholars. So he moved to California to start working at Research Center Ames of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Sergio Santa Maria studied biology and is currently a member of the BioSentinel Mission. Photo: Andes

What does Sergio Santa Maria do at NASA?

In a dialogue with Peru 21 in November this year, Sergio Santa Maria He noted that it is part of five research projects. Chief among these is BioSentinel. This is NASA’s first biological experiment.

At the end of November, Santa Maria served as the principal investigator for one of the ten missions behind the Artemis I rocket, which reached the Moon.