2022 GMiS Luminary Honorees

Growing up in a rural community outside San Sebastian in northern Spain, Iker Liceaga maintained the highest grades across all subjects. He even excelled at writing poetry in Basque, the ancient pre-Roman language native to the region. What he lacked, however, was exposure to opportunities to apply and develop his talent.

Mr. Liceaga credits spending weekends in public libraries across San Sebastian scouring books on robotics for sparking his passion for STEM.  That passion powered him to undergraduate and Master’s degrees in industrial engineering at the Universidad de Navarra not far from home.  While in grad school, he pursued the opportunity of a lifetime to enroll at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a visiting student to develop his thesis, which turned into a full-time position as a graduate researcher.

After MIT, Mr. Liceaga accepted a position at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – no small feat for a non-U.S. citizen.  In his current role, he leads a team of over 30 engineers on all mechanical-related activities for two telescope missions: the high energy ion telescope which will study energetic particles streaming from interstellar space; and the Compton-Pair telescope set to explore the most powerful medium energy gamma-ray events in the universe.  He’s contributed to six additional programs during his five short years at NASA as well.

Determined to expose young students to opportunities he lacked growing up in rural Spain, Mr. Liceaga volunteers with NASA community outreach programs and shares his passion for space exploration at career fairs as a guest speaker and via interviews with Spanish language media.