Adriana Ocampo

Adriana C. Ocampo Uria (born January 5, 1955) is a Colombian planetary geologist and a Science Program Manager at NASA Headquarters. In 1970, Ocampo emigrated to California and completed her Master in Sciences at California State University, Northridge and finished her PhD at the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. During high school and graduate studies she worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she serves as the science coordinator for many planetary missions (Viking, Mars Observer, Voyager, Galileo Galileo Mission, etc).

She was the first to recognize, using satellite images, that a ring of cenotes or sinkholes, is the only surface impression of the buried Chicxulub crater. This research contributed significantly to the understanding of this impact crater. Ocampo has subsequently led at least seven research expeditions to the Chicxulub site. and to Belize K/Pg ejecta sites, which she discovered and are the subject of her MSc and PhD. She continues to search for new impact craters, and with her team, in 2017, reported on a possible crater near Cali, Colombia.

As lead Program Executive for NASA's New Frontiers Program she has oversight responsibility for the program. The New Frontier Program is composed of the mission New Horizons, Juno, OSIRIS ReX, and Dragonfly. She is also currently the Program Executive of the Discovery Program Lucy mission Lucy Mission the first mission to explore the Trojans asteroids. Ocampo was the Program Executive of the Juno mission to Jupiter Juno Mission. and New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. She received the Woman of the Year in Science award from the Comisión Femenil in 1992. In 2002, she was named one of the most important women in science by the Discover magazine. To commemorate her contributions to space exploration, an asteroid was named after her.