Josephine Santiago-Bond

Josephine Santiago-Bond didn’t grow up wanting to work for NASA. Having grown up in the Philippines, NASA was half a world away, and was something she had only read about in history books, or occasionally heard about on television. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from the University of the Philippines in 2001, she decided to forgo acceptance to her telecommunications dream job in order to take some much needed time off and explore the job market in the United States. She had planned to apply for an engineering job in the semiconductor industry, which suffered a decline that year. She landed her first engineering job in 2002 at Daktronics, Inc. designing sport products and was accepted into the master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at South Dakota State University. In 2003, her academic adviser recommended that she should spend a summer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to test some electronics they had jointly designed. The excitement and encouragement of her family and friends fueled her interest in a more permanent career at NASA, which started in 2004. One summer at Kennedy was enough for her to realize that NASA is relevant to everyone, whether they live in the United States or on the opposite side of the planet. In her spare time she volunteers for outreach activities to educate kids about the relevance of NASA to their lives. Practicing a sustainable work-life balance is one of her top priorities. With the help of mentors and coaches, she currently serves as a systems engineer for the RESOLVE payload project and is able to enjoy ample time with her family and friends.