Misplaced Pages

Clara O'Farrell

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
American aerospace engineer
Clara O'Farrell
Clara O'Farrell at JPL in 2021
BornClara O'Farrell
1984 (age 40–41)
Boston, Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican-Argentinean
Alma materPrinceton University (BSE)
California Institute of Technology (PhD)
Known forMars 2020
Mars sample-return mission
Spouse Francisco Zabala ​(m. 2019)​
Scientific career
InstitutionsNASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Princeton University (BSE)
California Institute of Technology (PhD)
ThesisA dynamical systems analysis of vortex pinch-off (2013)
Doctoral advisorJohn Dabiri
Websiteclaraofarrell.github.io

Clara O'Farrell (born 1984) is a guidance and control engineer for the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) group at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab who is known for her work on the Mars Perseverance Rover Mission. Her education and research in aerospace engineering focused in propulsion and fluid dynamics, leading her to work for NASA.

Early life and education

She was raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Farrell's heritage is Irish and she grew up speaking English at home with her mother and grandparents. Her grandparents also own and operated a copper vessel manufacturing factory in Florida, Buenos Aires; where they would mass produce dulce de leche for distributive purposes. At the age of 19, she moved to the United States to attend college where she realized aerospace was another path for her aspirations. In 2008, O'Farrell earned her Bachelors of Science in Engineering (BSE), Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University in New Jersey. As a child, O'Farrell was always interested in science and one of her childhood dreams was to be a marine biologist. As she grew older, she thought her options in science were limited to medicine or engineering. She has credited both her mother and her grandmother for inspiring her work ethic and learning how the world works. In May 2013, she completed her Ph.D at California Institute of Technology in Control and Dynamical Systems, with a focus on the fluid dynamics of jellyfish swimming in John Dabiri's group.

Research and projects

Miguel San Martin inspired O'Farrell and helped hone her interest in working in aerospace and at NASA. As an undergrad, she joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab where O'Farrell worked with John Dabiri, studying the contraction movements of jellyfish as a way to understand and model vortex rings. Also, she worked with Dabiri on Nested contour-dynamic models for vortex rings and vortex wakes. This led her to officially start working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in 2013.

In 2020, O'Farrell was part of the Mars Perseverance Rover Mission for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab as a guidance and control engineer. She was a member of the group that created the supersonic parachute for the rover that landed on Mars in February 2021. Her simulations on spacecraft trajectory helped guide the Perseverance mission's entry, descent, and landing on Mars. As of 2022, O’Farrell is working on developing a supersonic parachute that will be used to collect soil samples from Mars. O'Farrell has been vocal about her desire to inspire other women and minorities who doubt their abilities in science.

Awards

O'Farrell was a 2021 recipient of the Hispanic Heritage Awards Honors along with NASA Engineers Christina Hernández and Diana Trujillo.

See also

  • Miguel San Martín, Chief Engineer for the Guidance, Navigation, and Control system in the latest missions to Mars

References

  1. ^ dabirilab.com. "John Dabiri's Research Group Alumni". Retrieved 2023-09-11.
  2. mars.nasa.gov. "Clara O'Farrell - Guidance and Control Engineer | People Profile - NASA". mars.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  3. ^ Ellitoral.com. "Quién es Clara O'Farrell: la ingeniera Argentina que trabaja en la NASA y llegó hasta Marte". www.ellitoral.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  4. Ellitoral.com. "Quién es Clara O'Farrell: la ingeniera argentina que trabaja en la NASA y llegó hasta Marte". www.ellitoral.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-04-24.
  5. Ellitoral.com. "Quién es Clara O'Farrell: la ingeniera argentina que trabaja en la NASA y llegó hasta Marte". www.ellitoral.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-04-19.
  6. ^ "Clara O'Farrell es argentina, trabaja en la NASA y se especializa en diseñar paracaídas supersónicos". LA NACION (in Spanish). 2022-10-15. Retrieved 2023-04-19.
  7. ^ Martinez, Juan (2022-04-23). "Argentina native helps NASA put Perseverance rover on Mars". Orato. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  8. ^ Martínez, Juan (2022-01-01). "CLARA O'FARRELL: ANIMARSE A COSAS PODEROSAS | CONVIVIMOS digital". convivimos.naranja.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-04-19.
  9. "Mars Perseverance Team Members to Be Recognized at Hispanic Heritage Awards". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  10. Martinez, Juan (2022-04-23). "Argentina native helps NASA put Perseverance rover on Mars". Orato. Retrieved 2023-04-19.
  11. O’Farrell, Clara; Dabiri, John O. (March 2010). "A Lagrangian approach to identifying vortex pinch-off" (PDF). Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science. 20 (1): 017513. doi:10.1063/1.3275499. ISSN 1054-1500.
  12. O’Farrell, Clara; Dabiri, John O. (2012-06-29). "Perturbation response and pinch-off of vortex rings and dipoles" (PDF). Journal of Fluid Mechanics. 704: 280–300. doi:10.1017/jfm.2012.238. ISSN 0022-1120.
  13. O’Farrell, Clara; Dabiri, John O. (2014-05-01). "Nested contour dynamics models for axisymmetric vortex rings and vortex wakes" (PDF). Journal of Fluid Mechanics. 748: 521–548. doi:10.1017/jfm.2014.199. ISSN 0022-1120.
  14. "Hispanic Heritage Foundation – Page 2". Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  15. mars.nasa.gov. "Perseverance Team Members Recognized at Hispanic Heritage Awards". NASA Mars Exploration. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
This article needs additional or more specific categories. Please help out by adding categories to it so that it can be listed with similar articles. (May 2023)
Categories:
Clara O'Farrell Add topic