NASA engineer Erika Alvarez on the Shop Class Podcast

This week's guest is Erika Alvarez, she is the Acting Systems Engineering and Integration Director for the Advanced Exploration Systems Division at NASA Headquarters.  (YES NASA!!!)  She began her career at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in 2004 as a turbopump engineer for the Space Shuttle Main Engine. Throughout her NASA tenure, Alvarez has enjoyed working in various capacities:  hardware engineer and team lead; chief engineer for small technology projects; deputy lead systems engineer for the Space Launch System; and a deputy office manager for the Human Landing System program.  All these roles led to her current post as the SE&I lead for NASA’s Artemis missions to return humankind to the moon and pave the way for crewed missions to Mars. On a daily basis, Alvarez is chiefly responsible for ensuring programs such as the Human Landing System, Lunar Gateway, and Lunar Terrain Vehicle are openly and effectively communicating and working with the technical authorities and crew to successfully integrate near-term lunar surface and cis-lunar operational missions.  Alvarez holds an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from Penn State University and spends her time outside of work focusing on her family, her husband Pete and highly inquisitive 7-year-old son, PJ. She also enjoys working on outreach activity programs to students nationwide in NASA hands-on experiments and planning for future STEM careers.  ...and get this, she became interested in all this from a before school STEM/Shop class.