From the clinic to the concert hall to the cosmos

I've been at UCLA for almost 27 years - more than half my life! Today, I'm working my dream job as a program manager and outreach coordinator for multiple NASA satellite missions in the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences (EPSS) and the UCLA SPACE Institute. I'm also the fabrication lead for the Electron Losses and Fields Investigation (ELFIN) student project, building novel instruments and nanosatellites to study space weather.

Here's my Bruin origin story.

My grandma, Salome "Mimi" Rili, brought our family from the Philippines via a federal nurse training program and settled in Santa Monica in 1973. Joining UCLA Student Health in 1978 as an immunization nurse and working there for over 17 years, she was very charming and popular with the students who nicknamed her "Painless Mimi." Some of my earliest memories are of her babysitting me in the clinic as a toddler while my single mom was at work. I vividly remember craving the American cafeteria food, pondering the mysterious inverted fountain, and the blur of brick- and tree-lined walkways while accompanying her on lunch-hour walks.

My mom adored science and history and instilled this love in me early on, cementing the notion that I would be a college graduate. The public library was my refuge, and I read everything about the natural world I could get my hands on, especially astronomy. "Moon" was one of my first words, and "Goodnight Moon" was my earliest favorite book. She took me to SMC Drescher planetarium regularly to hear lectures, and that's where I first saw Jupiter and Saturn through a telescope. I was transfixed. I memorized the constellations and could pick out the Milky Way from my Santa Monica apartment on extra-dark nights, which is no longer possible these days with city light pollution.

Space has been my longest-lasting obsession, and I always dreamt of being a pilot and an astronaut. I was desperate to go to Space Camp, but we couldn't afford it, so instead I built plastic models of aircraft and the space shuttle and later got into remote-controlled airplanes. I have been obsessed with flight simulators ever since I built my first computer in 1990. I was even voted by my elementary school classmates as most likely to work for NASA.

When I got my first credit card during my senior year at UCLA, without hesitation, I signed up for flying lessons. Once or twice a week, I would ride my bike to Santa Monica Airport at dawn and fly around Malibu and West LA, practicing maneuvers and landings, and then ride my bike to class at UCLA. Although I ran out of money before I could get my license, it was an absolute blast and incredible to see UCLA from the air early in the morning, while many other students were probably still asleep! I did eventually get my drone pilot's license and helped establish training and safety protocols for the UC Drone Safety Program to support student field research.

In parallel with science, music, too, has permeated every facet of my life, fostering confidence and forging friendships, yielding critical self-insights, and carrying me through trying times. From as early as I can remember, I could hear my grandmother practicing piano every morning through my bedroom wall, which awakened my musical ear and spurred my determination to learn every instrument I have encountered. My new students try to guess how many I play; it's in the 30s at this point.

Thanks to UCLA's ethnomusicology ensembles, I took African drumming, which blew my mind, then dove even deeper into Indian classical music: the fluidity of rhythm on the tabla, followed by the mesmerizing melodies of sitar, both with visiting professor Ustad Nishat Khan. I've performed with him at Royce Hall and all over the U.S. and Europe since, including Carnegie Hall twice and London's Albert Hall, and helped produce the first-ever Taj Mahal Opera, which he debuted last summer. I was also fortunate to perform at Royce with one of my jazz heroes, professor Kenny Burrell, as a member of the UCLA Chorale. Music has always been integral to my personality and key to my success. Through years of touring and managing my bands, I gained the skills for public speaking, graphic and video design, communications, and more that are so vital in my job representing EPSS and our NASA missions now.

When I first applied to UCLA, I didn't feel confident enough with math to do engineering, so I declared pre-med and majored in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. I quickly got my first lab job in the School of Nursing: studying virus-induced cancers and running a BSL2+ lab, working with patients while managing multiple clinical trials, and mentoring undergrad lab helpers and nursing students. Though after 12 years in this job, I was itching for a fresh start.

Harkening back to space, my first love, I joined EPSS in 2011 and embarked on an exciting new career in space plasma physics, coordinating research on Earth's magnetic field and the "electron rain" that powers the auroras. In 2013, we won NASA and NSF funding to build ELFIN, UCLA's first satellite built by students, which I am so passionate about and honored to have played a role. As a staff mentor on the mechanical design and fabrication teams, I have personally trained over 50 undergrads in precision CNC machining.

With only a few staff members and modest funding, I am constantly amazed by the scale and ambition of what we are able to pull off, especially with mostly undergrad volunteers. It's so rewarding to see them grow into leadership roles and own their subsystems like professionals, opening doors to successful careers in the future. I'm beyond proud to say that we have trained 400-plus students in the past 13 years and published over 70 papers, more than any other student-led mission!

Now we are extending our technology development even further to the moon to complement two EPSS satellite missions operating there (NASA's LRO and THEMIS-ARTEMIS), as we aim to expand our understanding of Earth's early history, the origins of water and life, our magnetic field, and so much more.

Besides music and science, UCLA has also shaped me in other significant ways. I went vegan for the animals and the environment in 2000, but sadly healthy veg food options on campus were still very limited. After years of lobbying with the student advocacy group Bruins for Animals, we finally succeeded in bringing more plant-based options in the dorms and eateries in 2007. It's a dream come true to see so many people queuing up at Veggie Grill in Ackerman, when there were only salads and fries before!

I've never been athletic whatsoever, but during the pandemic, I picked up a new hobby through UCLA Recreation: studying Kali/Escrima on Zoom. Connecting with my Filipino warrior ancestry has been so fascinating and empowering, eventually leading me to train in real-life sword fighting based on ancient medieval manuscripts, aka Historical European Martial Arts, which I now help teach locally. I've even randomly encountered a number of fellow Bruins in my sword school, and have enjoyed coaching and sparring with them on campus, which is pretty cool.

At the end of the day, I am still at UCLA because I am committed to the mission of holistic public education, enabling and inspiring future generations to pursue science in all forms, for the benefit of all humanity.

In all I do, I try my best to embody the Bruin spirit by continuing to build community on campus and beyond, through mentoring students and teaching the public about cutting-edge space research that can safeguard our technology-dependent future.

Go Space Bruins!

Watch an audio description version of the video above by clicking this link.