Moogega...

Image Source: LA Weekly (link below)

Topics: African Americans, Diversity, Diversity in Science, HBCU, NASA, Women in Science

If you watch How The Universe Works on the Science Channel (as I'm apt to), you might have caught a glimpse of this young lady doing several monologues in the series. She was pretty easy to find with such a unique spelling (and apropos meaning) of her name. The pronunciation of the same is below, phonetically and brilliantly explained by the article's writer (likely with Moogega's help). She is the picture of the strength of diversity, and the talent Historically Black Colleges and Universities can produce.

Somewhere on Mars, the initials of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, J-P-L, are written in Morse code spanning hundreds of meters across the red planet. It's this kind of detail that thrills JPL scientist Moogega Cooper - especially since JPL, considered NASA's little brother, accomplished this on the sly.

"Initially, for the robotics missions, we had JPL [stamped] on the wheels so that as it rolls along Mars it would tag Mars: JPL, JPL, JPL. And NASA stepped in and said, 'No, you can't do that,'?" Cooper explains. "So JPL said, 'OK, sure, we'll take that off.' And instead they put it in Morse code."

Cooper, named rainbow or "moo-jee-gae" by her Korean mother and raised by her African-American World War II veteran father, is a human comet of beauty, intelligence and creativity. The scientist graduated from high school at 16, and at 24 earned her Ph.D., then launched her NASA career.

Now 28, she is a planetary protection engineer at JPL. A big part of her job is making sure that NASA doesn't contaminate other planets with terrestrial microorganisms or any other Earth life, and vice versa - bacteria from, say, Mars, that could potentially harm humans.

She's currently working on a 2020 Mars mission, which involves drilling core samples from the planet, and contamination prevention during NASA's orbit of Jupiter's icy moon, Europa. "It's so great! We recently saw that there are geysers on the surface of Europa and that means it's much more active than we thought," Cooper says. [1]

Moogega Cooper: You know, I say Pasadena is my hometown but I actually grew up in Beverly, New Jersey until I was 11 when we moved to Hampton, VA. I was pretty sheltered growing up so I spent most of my time playing with my siblings or by myself. I attended college at Hampton University where I majored in Physics and minored in Space, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences. The program was beyond amazing and that is where I learned my first programming language and worked with real NASA satellite data at 16 years of age. I have so many people to thank at Hampton who significantly contributed to where I am today (Including my main mentor, Dr. James Russell III). [2]

1. LA Weekly: Moogega Cooper: The JPL's Space Engineer, Sophia Kercher
2. Madame Moire: College At 16, NASA Career, & Reality TV: Moogega Cooper Is A NERD And PROUD Of It, Lauren DeLisa Coleman