RG x RACI_EmpoweringtheFutureofSTEM_singlepages300dpi - Book - Page 32
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WA N D A D i A Z - M E R C E D ●
ASTROPHYSi Ci ST
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ven though she didn’t have a lot of books at home, Wanda loved to read.
Once, she found an enormous atlas – and it set her imagination on fire!
Because of a developmental disability, her sister stayed mostly in her room.
Wanda would climb into bed next to her, and the pair would read sections of the
book aloud to one another, painting mental pictures of countless fascinating
places far away. Sometimes, Wanda would hold onto imaginary controls and
pretend to fly a spacecraft in a whole new galaxy.
When she was teenager, Wanda began to lose her sight. It was frustrating and
scary, and it made going to school much more difficult. She was studying for her
physics degree when she became completely blind. What should she do? Should
she quit? Should she push on? Wanda refused to give up on her studies.
While she was at uni, a friend pulled her aside and introduced her to something
incredible: live radio transmissions from space.
“What a horrible noise!” she thought. “What is it?” she asked.
“It is the sound of a solar burst,” he responded.
All of a sudden, that awful noise turned into something beautiful – the sound
of possibility!
It took her six years, but she got her degree. Then she applied for an internship
at NASA. Soon she began using sonification. This is a process that converts data
into sound waves instead of visual displays. Wanda helped develop existing
software so it would interpret data better than before – and make astronomy
accessible to scientists who’d been left out in the past. Eventually, she proved
that audible data increases astronomers’ ability to detect black holes.
Wanda is dedicated to improving the ways people analyse astronomical data,
and she’s passionate about inviting more people into STEM.
She reminds us all: “Science is for everyone.”
PUERTO Ri CO
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