When Pablo Cisneros returned to Guayaquil last October, it wasn’t just to visit his family. He also came back to the hallways of ESPOL’s FIEC—those same corridors he once walked as a Computer Science student, where he planted dreams that now inspire many young people. There, amid spontaneous conversations and curious smiles, he shared his story: one that began in Sauces, building spacecraft out of Lego, and that today continues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a NASA research center in California.
Cisneros, together with José Laica, is the co-founder of the FunPython club, a space created at FIEC to bring students closer to programming and spark scientific vocations. That spirit of community and learning has taken him far, and today it is also what he most hopes to pass on.
“I want to see more Latinos and more Ecuadorians at NASA, because we lack representation,” he says with conviction to students and even to journalists who sought him out to share his story. In fact, his message to ESPOL students last October was clear: look beyond borders, dare to dream, and don’t stop in the face of obstacles—even when the path seems impossible.
His journey proves it. For thirteen years, he applied to NASA seven times. Six times the answer was “no.” But he kept trying. He knew his place was among satellites, data, and space missions. In 2022 he was finally accepted, and today he works as a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), ensuring that the information sent from probes and satellites arrives intact for scientific analysis.
At every step of his professional life, he carries his Ecuadorian identity with pride: from teaching his American colleagues to say chévere to sharing encebollado and salsa choke at the office. Culture, he says, is a force just as powerful as science.
Although he has tried to promote aerospace workshops in Ecuador, he acknowledges that the lack of institutional support and rising insecurity have slowed some projects. “We have talent, but no support. Colombia and Peru are far ahead in technology. We need support. A lot of it,” he emphasizes.
Even so, his mission goes beyond space exploration. His deepest source of inspiration is his son. “Maybe he’ll go even further… Maybe he’ll find fossils on Mars, because he wants to be a paleontologist,” he says with a laugh.
For ESPOL and FIEC, Pablo is a true example of perseverance and dedication to knowledge. His story is a reminder that dreams born in a classroom, a neighborhood, or a handful of Lego pieces can—through effort—reach great heights, close to space, all the way to NASA.
