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My name is Deborah Amato. I am the Deputy Chief 

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Technologist, and my primary responsibility is managing are internal

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research and development program.

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(Music)

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I think I first wanted to work at NASA, when I was a child.

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I was interested in,

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the space program, the NASA program, and the Space Shuttle Program specifically.

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I thought that maybe I'd be an astronaut one day.

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I was also interested in astronomy and stargazing,

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and so, that interest 

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just grew and I ultimately ended up at NASA,

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working on space projects. On my first day at NASA,

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I was a summer intern. I found out about an 

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opportunity to be able to come and work as a summer intern here,

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and I was so excited, and thrilled to be here. And it was

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a lot of information to take in, and I met lots of new people, and

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it really was just a thrill to be here at NASA.

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And then after I was a summer intern, I was able to get into

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the co-op program. And when I entered the co-op program and

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was working here, it was sort of my first experience 

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of feeling like I was an adult. Like okay, this is 

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real, and this is what engineering is like.

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When I first came to NASA,

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I was working as an engineer with a scientist

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mentor, and he was able to show me 

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the various projects that he was working on. And the first project that I worked on was

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called HESPM, High Energy Solar Physics Mission.

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And it eventually turned into an actual mission, 

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that I was able to work on about 10 years later.

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So, it was really interesting to be able to see 

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that, sort of at the beginning stages of the concept formation

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and then, work on it when we're actually building hardware

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and launching a satellite. One of the biggest influences on my 

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life was my grandmother. And she was a 

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teacher, for all of the years that I knew here she was a teacher. Because of that 

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and because of her beliefs, she set for me the 

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idea that education is very important, and my family too. Education was very

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important in my family. And I believe that education is important for

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building on your skills and preparing for whatever career that you 

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might pursue in the future. She was a very special lady and very influential,

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and also my parents of course, my mother and father

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were influential and certainly on my choice of career. My father is an electrical 

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engineer, and my mother is a chemist. And we always teased that I would grow up to be a 

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chemical engineer. And it sort of worked out that way, in that I ended up pursuing aerospace

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space engineering. The happiest moment of my career being able to 

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see a project that I've worked on being launched.

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And I think that, that is all of the work, all of the 

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preparation and work goes into that one moment and everyone is so

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thrilled when things are successful. What I'm most proud of is 

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for my career at NASA so far, having something that I touched and

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worked on orbit the Earth. One of my favorite projects that I worked on

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is named TRACE, The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer.

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It's a small spacecraft that's studied the sun, and 

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I was able to hold the primary mirror of the telescope while 

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the mirror mount was being installed. And I did a variety of other things for that

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instrument, but that was really an excellent team, 

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wonderful project and very exciting when it launched,

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and when we go the first pictures back. One thing that I would say for 

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young women who are preparing to enter the work force and,

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or preparing to pursue and educational path for their future, just

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go for it, and definitely work hard, and prepare yourself.

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Don't be afraid of the stereotypes or the 

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things that you might hear, or cautions that you might have like

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"engineering is not for you," "there's only men pursuing engineering,"

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or other things that you might assume about particular, 

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a particular, profession that you would choose. I have always in my 

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experience; I have always had a very 

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easy time in this profession,

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and working for NASA. So although there are more men

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in engineering, and more men that I work with then women, that hasn't been a problem,

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and it hasn't been a set back for me in my 

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career. 

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(music)

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(music)