{"id":717,"date":"2014-03-04T12:29:06","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T17:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/?p=717"},"modified":"2014-02-20T17:31:41","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T22:31:41","slug":"qa-with-mayra-montrose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/?p=717","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with Mayra Montrose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to 2014 with AWIS DC! This year, we are taking the opportunity afforded by social media to give you a brief \u201cintroduction\u201d to all of the AWIS DC officers. We are here to help you, and if you spot us at an AWIS DC gathering, please say hi!<\/em><\/p>\n

For our next installment in the series, please welcome the Vice President of Communications, Mayra Montrose!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mayra\"<\/a>Ms. Mayra Montrose is the Program Manager of the Presidential National Medal of Science and the National Science Foundation\u2019s Alan T. Waterman Award and serves as the NSF point of contact with the White House\u2019s Office of Science and Technology Policy for all Presidential awards managed by NSF.\u00a0 She is also the Executive Secretary of the Committee on Science of the President\u2019s National Science and Technology Council that coordinates science policy for the Federal Government.\u00a0 She joined NSF in January, 2006.<\/p>\n

Ms. Montrose worked at NASA for seventeen years.\u00a0 Her last job at NASA was as Program Manager of the Energy and Water National Applications in the Applied Sciences Program in the Science Mission Directorate. Prior to that job, she was Program Manager for Education in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, where she worked in Education and research policy issues.\u00a0 Ms. Montrose worked for five years as Executive Officer to the NASA Chief Scientist.\u00a0 She also worked for five years in the Life Sciences Division of the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications as the manager of the Life Sciences Small Payloads program.\u00a0 Ms. Montrose\u2019s first job with NASA was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where she worked as an experiment engineer, testing payloads before they flew in the Space Shuttle.\u00a0\u00a0 While at Kennedy Space Center, she also worked as a VIP escort for the space shuttle launches, and as a mentor for disadvantaged elementary school students.\u00a0 She has received numerous achievement awards acknowledging her significant contributions, including two from the European Space Agency and the German Space Agency.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1998, Ms. Montrose received the NASA Cooperative External Achievement Award for her efforts in serving as an interface with new prospective commercial partners of NASA.<\/p>\n

Ms. Montrose was selected to participate in the 1996 LEGISfellows program sponsored by The Brookings Institute.\u00a0 She worked in California Congressman Esteban Torres\u2019 office in Washington D.C. for nine months.<\/p>\n

She earned Masters and Bachelor degrees in Computer Engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa.\u00a0 Ms. Montrose was born and raised in Puerto Rico.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. What do you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I work at the National Science Foundation.\u00a0 My job is to manage the National Medal of Science and the Alan T. Waterman Award ($1 million to an early-career scientist or engineer) and serve as liaison to the White House for all other presidential honorary awards managed by NSF.\u00a0 I am also the executive secretary of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Science, a policy and implementation group in the federal government.<\/p>\n

2. What is your science \u201cstory?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I stumbled into computer engineering after becoming disillusioned with chemical engineering.\u00a0 Literally stumbled:\u00a0 when I decided that chemical engineering was not what I envisioned, I decided to go down the list of engineering departments in alphabetical order.\u00a0 I skipped Civil and went into Computer and loved it!\u00a0 (I was ready to move on to Electrical and Industrial…). My areas of interest were chip design and fault testing.\u00a0 My first job was as an experiment engineer at NASA Kennedy Space Center, testing experiment hardware for the Space Shuttle.\u00a0 I mostly worked with materials science experiments.\u00a0 It was the best job ever!\u00a0 I moved to NASA Headquarters and managed research hardware for biological experiments.\u00a0 My career eventually delved into federal science policy, both at NASA and NSF.<\/p>\n

3. Why did you decide to get involved with AWIS DC?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have been a member for a long time.\u00a0 I love that AWIS is a society for women in all sciences and that it provides a network of support through all the stages of our careers.<\/p>\n

4. What is one of your favorite things about AWIS DC?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love that the members of AWIS DC come from so many interesting backgrounds!\u00a0 I also love the mission of supporting women by networking, mentoring and offering leadership opportunities.\u00a0 AWIS DC is a great community.<\/p>\n

5. What new program or event at AWIS DC do you like the most? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the Mentoring Circles is a superb program because it opens mentoring from the traditional one-on-one relationship to a group relationship.\u00a0 It is a winner!\u00a0 In 2014, I’m also looking forward to other activities such as kayaking (since I missed it last time).<\/p>\n

6. In your new position, what do you hope you will help AWIS DC accomplish?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As VP for communications, I hope to bring the experience I have gained in my job as executive secretary of the Committee on Science to help expand the network of the organization.\u00a0 I am especially eager to expand the network to more Latinas in science and engineering.<\/p>\n

7. Tell us something personal about yourself: when did you fall in love with science?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I grew up in a very small town in Puerto Rico.\u00a0 I have always loved science and mathematics and, as a child, spent countless hours working on math problems for fun.\u00a0 My nerdiness is genetic.\u00a0 My mom was a professor of nursing at the University of Puerto Rico.\u00a0 In high school, I loved chemistry more than any other science.\u00a0 My chemistry teacher was a very smart and beautiful woman who had worked as a scientist in a nuclear plant.\u00a0 She showed me the possibilities for women in science and engineering and was a great role model.\u00a0 My geometry teacher was another excellent role model: she went back to college and became an engineer after she had a successful career as a mathematics teacher.\u00a0 Although I did not have a specific \u201ca-ha\u201d moment in science, the exposure to these women opened my eyes to the possible careers for a little country nerd.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to 2014 with AWIS DC! This year, we are taking the opportunity afforded by social media to give you a brief \u201cintroduction\u201d to all of the AWIS DC officers. We are here to help you, and if you spot us at an AWIS DC gathering, please say hi! For our next installment in the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Q&A with Mayra Montrose”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723,"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.awisdc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}