Daniela graduated from UC Davis in 2018 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. From there she worked at Maxar Space LLC (formerly SSL) in the Bay Area as a Systems Engineer and then Lead Spacecraft Production Engineer on the NASA Psyche deep space mission – a spacecraft that will journey to 16-Psyche, the possible core of an early planetoid orbiting in the main asteroid belt. 

She is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering with a research focus on Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) – an integral step on the way to more sustainable human deep space exploration and habitation.  She is part of both HRVIP and the NASA HOME STRI (Habitats Optimized for Missions of Exploration), an institute headquartered at UC Davis and led by Dr. Robinson.  Within HOME, she has focused her efforts on both modeling and testing CO2 removal systems, producing data with a novel zeolite-based CO2 scrubbing unit at the UC Davis Center for Spaceflight Research that allows for the study of degradation within a life critical system.

When Daniela is not working, she enjoys exploring the outdoors, building hydroponic systems, and Latin dance!