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>>KATRINA: One pink, furry monster is really excited about NASA. 

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>>LOLA: Thank you, tell us about your super powers!

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>>DIANA: Well Lola, I don't have super powers. 

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>>LOLA: Of course you do! You know about science and math!

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>>KATRINA: NASA engineers Sandra Cauffman and Diana Trujillo 

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partnered with the muppet Lola from the Latin American Sesame Street program, 

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Plaza Sésamo, to talk about how kids can grow up to one day work on NASA

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missions like MAVEN and Curiosity. Their panel was part of an event with the

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Inter-American Development Bank, promoting early mathematics and science education

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in Latin America and the Caribbean. Sandra Cauffman, 

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an engineer and project manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland,

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spoke about the day as a child when she watched the Apollo 11 

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Moon landing and decided that she too wanted to go to the Moon. 

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This seemed an unlikely dream for a young girl in Costa Rica, but her mother had some words

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of encouragement. >>SANDRA: And she says, "Sandra, you never know, 

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if you put forth enough effort, the world will go around and around, 

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and you never know what may happen. You might eventually reach your dreams."

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>>KATRINA: Cauffman battled poverty, gender stereotypes, and language barriers to eventually 

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work in the U.S. on a suite of NASA projects such as the MAVEN orbiter

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at Mars. >>SANDRA: I never went to the Moon, but I landed

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among the stars. Thank you so much. [applause]

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>>KATRINA: Diana Trujillo, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 

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Pasadena, California, described her quest growing up in Colombia to find 

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a female role model in the aerospace sector. During college,

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she was about to give up, until she found a NASA magazine detailing the 

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education and backgrounds of female astronauts. >>DIANA: To me, this 

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magazine gave me all the role models that I was so desperately looking for.

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And it gave me that push that I needed to pursue my dream in exploration. 

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>>KATRINA: Soon Trujillo was awarded a competitive NASA Academy internship.

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>>DIANA: Thousands of people apply. 18 people got selected, 

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and I was the only hispanic among them. [interrupted by applause]

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[applause] >>KATRINA: This set her on a path

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toward working on projects like the Mars Curiosity rover, and becoming a 

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role model herself for the young girls back home. >>DIANA: We can make a

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difference for these girls. We can help them dare mighty things as well.

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Thank you very much. [applause]

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>>KATRINA: Cauffman and Trujillo spoke on the need for supporting young girls and boys

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equally throughout Latin America, and providing them resources and 

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role models to be motivated in science and math. Their discussion has 

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already had a big influence on one young girl. >>LOLA: Because now, Lola

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wants to become not only a soccer player, 

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and a president and a ballet dancer, 

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she also wants to become a 

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math teacher and an astronaut! Yes, this has...

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[Lola fades out] ...been a wonderful day because Lola 

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learned that it is much easier to be a scientist or an engineer

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than a super hero! Hahaha!