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Dr. Delia Santiago-Materese
Dr. Delia Santiago-Materese
Program Scientist
Dr. Delia Santiago-Materese wants things to get complex
From terrestrial animals to experiments in microgravity and Martian clouds, this NASA program scientistβs career path links diverse challenges. Today, she supports a mission to Saturnβs moon Titan, a world teeming with organic molecules that could hold valuable clues about the origin of life.
When novelty is your hobby, you already have a large part of the recipe for a career full of challenges. That is why Dr. Delia Santiago-Materese describes her path within NASA as βmeandering.β Her diverse roles have taken her to low Earth orbit, to the clouds of Mars, and to the surroundings of Jupiter. Now, they are also bringing her closer to the surface of Titan, an intriguing moon of Saturn. Woven together by her exploring spirit and a perennial curiosity, all these experiences have one point in common: life.
Today, Santiago-Materese is part of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The main decoration in her office is a model of Jupiter, larger than a basketball, resting next to a scale model of the spacecraft exploring it, Juno. Small black and red pins with the inscription βDragonflyβ rest in the center of a round table. Several framed diplomas cover a wall. From here, Santiago-Materese does βa little bit of everythingβ on any given workday as a program scientist for the Juno and Dragonfly missions, and for the Discovery program, which features a portfolio of several missions in our cosmic neighborhood.
This medley of roles is no coincidence. Santiago-Materese describes herself as someone who does not pursue a single goal, but rather diverse interests that she discovers along the way. βI am always looking for something new to add to my experiences,β she says, βbecause I think I also get bored easily.β
The daughter of a military family, Santiago-Materese was born in Spain by coincidence. Her roots are actually on another continent: her mother is Mexican-American and her father is Puerto Rican. From her time in Spain, she only keeps some baby photos; she lived part of her life in Texas and then in California, which she considers her homeβdespite having spent her childhood summers in San SebastiΓ‘n, Puerto Rico. It was in the Golden State where she first imagined herself as a veterinarian and decided to study Biological Sciences. And it was during her studies at Stanford University, βjust around the cornerβ from NASAβs Ames Research Center in Californiaβs Silicon Valley, that Santiago-Materese discovered astrobiology.
This elective course brought her closer to a discipline that, to some extent, was in its infancy. Today, NASAβs Astrobiology Program investigates life in the universe on many levels: how it began, how it evolved here on Earth, and where it might exist elsewhere. And that was how Santiago-Materese realized that biology and space were not two isolated things, she recounts.
Rodents, Insects, and Martian Clouds
After finishing her studies, Santiago-Materese completed a one-year internship at the San Francisco Zoo. But the unknown that astrobiology presents continued to intrigue her, so she went back to one of her professors to inquire more about it. She asked around and found someone at Lockheed Martin, a company that often contracts with NASA on space projects. They were looking for people for a new project studying the nutrition of the food bars for rodents traveling to space aboard the space shuttle.
Santiago-Materese has applied that formula ever since: identifying what truly interests her and finding the right person to ask questions. If people βdonβt know what youβre interested in, they canβt help you,β she explains. After experience with the Space Shuttle Program, including managing databases for science payloads aboard the space shuttle, she went on to work with the International Space Station, which was then beginning its legacy of over 25 years in Earth orbit. She supported the development of biological experiments in microgravity, this time with fruit flies. But Santiago-Materese wanted to keep moving farther from Earth and investigate future space destinations.
This curiosity led her to the Martian sky. As part of her graduate studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Santiago-Materese investigated the Martian atmosphere, focusing on ice in the clouds and the development of climate models for the Red Planet. She earned her masterβs degree and would later return to complete her doctorate under the NASA Pathways program, which is one of the agencyβs primary early-career hiring pathways. She would defend her thesis six months after giving birth to her first daughter (one of the achievements she is most proud of, she says). That is why, although she loves the βweirdβ planets of the outer solar system, she is βmore of a Mars person,β by training.
At NASA Ames, Santiago-Materese held various roles, ranging from social media and open science to lunar sciences. She then became a program officer for the Solar System Workings program in the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters as part of a detail, or temporary assignment. And then, she took off for Maryland along with her family.
Enabling Science
Santiago-Materese sums up her current role as a program scientist as the βscience liaisonβ between NASA Headquarters and a mission. βWhen you do program scientist work, you might not be specialized or an expert in the exact science, but you need to be able to understand it and talk about it, to understand its importance,β she explains. βIn general, we are supporting other people so they can do science.β In this endeavor, being someone who βgets more energy from working with peopleβ is usefulβ¦ and necessary: βYou are having conversations all day longβ with colleagues from different disciplinesβ from science and engineering to finance.
The Juno mission, in orbit around Jupiter since 2016, and Dragonfly, which is scheduled to launch no earlier than July 2028, are part of NASAβs New Frontiers program. Santiago-Materese also oversees the array of missions in the Discovery program, which includes ongoing science missions like Psyche and Lucyβheading to different asteroidsβand future missions to Venus.
For Santiago-Materese, sharing her unconventional path can be valuable for students and youth in general, especially those who are unsure of what they want to do. βYour dream job,β she says, βyou might not know it exists, or maybe it doesnβt exist today.β Beyond that, this zigzagging path has led her to accumulate experiences and relationships with different people, which she treasures even as she sets off for her next destination.
An Alien World
About two years out from Dragonflyβs launch, it is no surprise that this robotic mission takes up much of Santiago-Matereseβs time. βDragonfly feels like a combination of all my different experiences over time,β she reflects. And it signifies, to some extent, a return to her roots: it is an astrobiology mission. Although not designed to detect life, Dragonfly will investigate prebiotic chemistry: the chemical processes that could have led to the emergence of life on Earth.
Dragonfly will embark on a journey of about six years to the surface of Titan. The spacecraft will carry an array of science instruments and will be the first NASA science mission to explore another world by flying from location to location. This car-sized rotorcraft will touch down at various geological sites of interest to analyze the moonβs composition and its habitability potential.
When it arrives at Titan, it will encounter a landscape that is strange and familiar at the same time: it could be a window into Earthβs remote past. This frozen world has a thick atmosphere and clouds drifting across the sky; dunes, lakes, rivers, canyons and mountains. Titan even has a process equivalent to our water cycle. However, on Titan, it is not water that flows but hydrocarbons, primarily methane and ethane. βItβs a more methane-based chemistry, so it is very alien, and that is what I really love about Titan,β says Santiago-Materese. And on this moon, organic molecules abound.
These molecules contain carbon and are used by all known forms of life. They are fundamental to understanding the origin of life, as they can be produced by both biological and non-biological processes. On Titan, these organic molecules fall to the surface and form dense deposits over its bedrock of water ice. Scientists believe that the complex chemistry precursor to life could be triggered there if provided with a little liquid water, such as that generated by an asteroid impact.
Santiago-Materese is especially excited about what the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS) instrument will help discover. DraMS, designed and built at NASAβs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will analyze samples from Titanβs surface. βThe more complex things get, the more interesting things happen,β she says. βSo Iβm curious: just how complex do the molecules get? Will we find any interesting patterns?β
But in science, every time you ask a question, a new one arises. Dragonfly will try to answer several of them. βWhen you have a planet with complex chemistry but not life, what happens? What is there before life?β the program scientist wonders.
Titan, a valuable natural laboratory, βis going to completely change our understanding of what another world can be like,β she anticipates. In addition to what the scientific community expects to discover thanks to Dragonfly, Santiago-Materese is interested in the potential unexpected findings. βThere are very defined science goals, but a lot of it is exploratory work,β she explains. βIt is kind of nice to know that there is a big range [of possibilities], that we could be very surprised.β
By Noelia GonzΓ‘lez, NASAβs Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Lee esta historia en espaΓ±ol aquΓ.
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