by FLORENCE BRETON
Surrounded by white men on a daily basis, Farah Alibay is committed to increasing diversity and the visibility of women in her field.
Farah Alibay is a female aerospace engineer in a male-dominated field, but that hasn’t stopped the 32-year-old from forging ahead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Los Angeles to help reveal the secrets of Mars.
Alibay, who grew up in Joliette, Quebec, first became interested in space when she saw the movie “Apollo 13” at the age of 10.
“I got so worried watching the movie that my parents fast forwarded all the way to the end to show me that the astronauts had survived,” she told HuffPost Quebec. “Afterward, we watched the rest of the movie. It really fascinated me to see the engineers working together, even though they were all men.”
“My brother, who had always loved space, lost all interest in it once the movie was over,” she said. “From then on, I was the space lover.”
Inspiration To Pursue A Science Career
Growing up, Alibay had few female scientist role models. But one person has had a big impact on her career path: Julie Payette, an astronaut born in Montreal who is now governor general of Canada, a position that represents the queen and carries out her responsibilities in the country.
“We barely had an internet connection when I was in the sixth grade,” Alibay said. “For me, NASA was what you saw in the movies and when there were launches. Seeing someone like Julie Payette in magazines and on the news was the only way I was able to see that people like me worked there.”
From a young age, Alibay was confronted with the reality of feeling like an outsider.
“We were the only immigrant family in Joliette,” she said, noting her parents emigrated from Madagascar. “I was the only brown girl in my school. I always had a head for science and my grades were good, but I experienced a lot of bullying.” She said those challenging years made her develop a strong personality that has since been useful.
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