Doctor in Mathematics from the UB Ariadna Farrés (Barcelona, 1981) is a specialist in astrodynamics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). There she works with the flight dynamics and mission design team, on projects such as Space Weather Follow On and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, two telescopes that will go to the Lagrange points L1 and L2. Farrés participates today in the conference of the Barcelona City Council and the Catalan Mathematical Society to promote scientific vocations.
When did you become interested in mathematics?
At school, but from high school onwards. In primary school it was all adding and subtracting, and I wasn't good at that. I started to like them when I saw that they could solve problems ingeniously.
Why do so many schoolchildren have a passion for mathematics? What's wrong so that they're not interesting?
Connection missing. Mathematics is something very abstract and when it is explained in school it is necessary to understand its usefulness, where it can be applied. You try to see them from the game's point of view, but I don't know if that helps or not. What I like is that they are something logical, that helps you understand why things happen and solve problems. Mathematics, for example, explains science.
He says that at school they do not convey its usefulness, but in society mathematics is everywhere. Today mathematicians are highly sought after professionals. Is it contradictory?
There is a great lack of mathematics teachers and perhaps many professionals who explain them do not have training in mathematics or are not passionate about them, and that means that they explain them with little energy, it does not help you like them.
In general, schoolchildren do not like mathematics, girls seem even less so. There is a lot of gap and in recent years it has been widening.
When I studied mathematics we were 50%-50%. And now it has been changing. When I was studying, most women went to teach, to teach in institutes. They, on the other hand, were looking for more consulting, more technical outlets. Now the default outlet for mathematics is more technical disciplines, and perhaps women are less attracted to it. It seems that when scientific careers become more technical or have a less direct return to society, that makes them fall back a bit. I think that is why the gap between boys and girls in mathematics studies has widened.
How did you jump from mathematics to aerospace?
Because I had always been interested in space, I have always liked it. I did not study aerospace engineering because in my time it was not in the collective imagination and in Barcelona I think there were no careers of that type. I liked math and I entered that career. When I finished it, I had to look for a job, I wasn't sure where I wanted to end up, and I started a doctorate at the UB where they had done studies and applied space mathematics.
How did you come to work at NASA?
In 2016 I went for a four-month summer stay while I waited to be given a teaching position at the university here. My goal was to be a researcher at the university. I came back, but they didn't give me that place. Then the opportunity arose to work at NASA again: they offered me to continue with the project I had started and those four months turned into six years.
Tell us what it's like to work at NASA.
The part I like the most is that its environment is interdisciplinary. Teams with the same objective, each one from their specialty. In the end, it is a job like any other: if the objective is to put this in space, you are in charge of designing the trajectory, another of designing the satellite, that of how we are going to talk to the satellite, another of what we want to see with the satelite...
What is your job?
I am dedicated to the design of trajectories and planning of maneuvers. Essentially: if we want to take a satellite to a certain point in space, how do we have to do it, trajectory, maneuvers to get to that point with the minimum cost or with the minimum time... And then we have to keep it in orbit, to what I designed maneuvers, the mission timeline.
It is also in the Hypatia space project. What does your work consist of there?
Hypatia is a project with which we intend to promote scientific vocations among girls, above all, create scientific references and advance a little in space exploration, analyze the conditions for one day being able to send a mission to Mars. I was part of the first crew as one of the scientists, responsible for health and safety. Now, in Hypatia II, I will be the commander, since one of the requirements is that at least one of the people has to have been there before, and that is me.
If you could, would you like to go to Mars?
On a personal level, no. I would love to go to space, go to the Moon. I consider Mars right now to be a very long, very dangerous journey.
You are often mentioned as an example of young, female, Catalan talent. And why is there so much scientific talent that goes to work abroad?
Because there are not as many opportunities here as we would like. In the case of the aerospace sector, in Spain it is just beginning. That is to say, the talent is there, the education is good, there are good teachers... But it depends on what you want to do, there is not the ecosystem here to stay. That's why we're leaving. Although, well, it's not that critical either. That is, we should encourage or do something to make people stay, but also to bring in talent from outside.
How to encourage girls to have scientific vocations?
I would like all of them to not be afraid to dare to do anything. Perhaps one of the things that I have seen in myself is that when I have had an idea or I have wanted to do certain things, I have always had that feeling that I won't be able to and that stops you.
