...the young NASA astroboy

Fil-Am one of NASA's youngest engineers

December 5, 2011

GMA News

Filipino-American Gregory Galgana Villar III, at 24, is one of the youngest engineers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States.

Villar works as a verification and validation engineers of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) department who worked on the Mars Science Laboratory mission , a report of the Asian Journal said. 

Dubbed "Mars Curiosity," the Mars Science Laboratory is NASA's biggest and best-equipped robot ever sent to explore another planet from the Kennedy Space Centre. Launched on November 26, it is expected to reach Mars by August 2012, the report said.

Villar hails from Long Beach and has always been interested in physics and astronomy.

Asked how he got into NASA, Villar said he spent two years interning with three different education programs at JPL:

• Laboratory’s Minority Initiatives Internship,
• Space Grant and
• Undergraduate Student Research Program as an undergrad student at Cal-Poly, Pomona.

Villar was a Physics major who graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 2009 .

When not working in NASA, Villar writes on his blog "100 Words of Physics," where, like a teacher, he discusses aeronautics in understandable layman’s terms. 


Teaching is actually one of Villar's dreams.


"Through teaching, I can continue to share my love and knowledge of Physics and Astronomy to younger generations," Villar told the Asian Journal.


Another of Villar's dreams is to contribute "a great deal to the astronomical community, I would love to continue my research and also teach by obtaining a professorship at a University." - VVP, GMA News