I'm a Toro

Rosemary Diaz — B.S., Physics, 2000

I See Beyond Our World

Rosemary Diaz is an optics engineer for Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). She joined JPL as a summer student hire in the optics section and worked part-time throughout graduate school. For the past decade, she has worked on various projects, including the Space Interferometry Mission, the Terrestrial Planet Finder, research and technology development, and most recently, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory.

Diaz currently works on optical testbeds, which are experimental optical layouts that are used to help design and develop new technologies for applications that will one day be used in space exploration. She also writes software for data acquisition and analysis, runs computer simulations of sensors that are used to measure relative positions of optics, and designs mechanical hardware that is used to hold custom optical assemblies.