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#STEM ROLE MODEL EXHIBITING THE EXCITING REAL-WORLD CAREER APPLICATIONS OF STEM
DEBORAH NAVARRO
CO-FOUNDER, MIT HYPERLOOP/AIRLEV
Hi/Hola! I’m Deborah Navarro, co-founder of MIT Hyperloop & AirLev. I got my start with pioneering the world’s first air-levitated Hyperloop vehicle designed to move goods and people from one point to the next at almost 800 mph. That’s fast, but I grew up in a slow place.
I spent the first 17 years of my life melting in the Texas heat in a sleepy little border town hours away from any major city, and some two decades behind in infrastructure–no internet, and still no public transportation to this day. There, I spent a lot of time with nothing to do but think and daydream.
I couldn’t imagine life in NYC, but I took a chance and made the leap. I figured, If I, a Latinx woman from the Rio Grande Valley, could make the jump from where I was raised and make it here, what wouldn’t I, and people like me, be able to do? What would anyone given seemingly no shot be able to do?
I’m driven by my community’s struggle. I think of how life-changing it would be for marginalized and disadvantaged people to be connected to better schools, opportunities, jobs, systems.
By 2040, I want the US to be a leader in the future of transit, building autonomous transportation systems, powered by clean-energy. Will we make the right choices before the damage we’ve done to our communities and our planet is irreversible?
