Path to the Stars: My Journey from Girl Scout to Rocket Scientist

Sylvia Acevedo's PATH TO THE STARS was not an easy one. She was raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in the 1960s and '70s -- a time when girls who wanted to become engineers or scientists were easily dismissed and the idea that a Latina girl might aspire to such things was almost inconceivable. But she did have a few things working for her. Sylvia's father was a chemist with a passion for books and libraries, and her mother, who had immigrated from Mexico and struggled early on to learn English, was determined that her children get the best education possible. That meant leaving their close-knit Spanish-speaking neighborhood when Sylvia was in second grade and moving to a new neighborhood with better schools. As one of the few Latino students in the school, she more often than not felt isolated and unwelcome -- until she met another girl named Sylvia who was a Brownie and who invited her to join the troop. While working on her Girl Scout Science badge, Sylvia built a model rocket and began to see new possibilities for her future. In high school she set her sights on becoming an industrial engineer and earned a scholarship to New Mexico State. She then went on to become a rocket scientist at the Jet Propulsion Labs, where she worked on the Voyager mission's fly-by of Jupiter and its moons and the Solar Polar/Probe missions.