Aaron Yazzie

Aaron Yazzie (born 1986) is a Diné (Navajo) mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work involves planetary sample acquisition and handling. He has worked on the Mars Science Laboratory, InSight, and Mars 2020 missions.

Early life and education Yazzie is (Salt Clan) and born for (Bitter Water Clan). He was born in 1986 in Tuba City, Arizona, part of the Navajo Nation, and raised in Holbrook, Arizona, where his father was a civil engineer and his mother was a math teacher.

Yazzie had originally planned on attending a public university in Arizona, but he decided to apply to Stanford University after meeting an admissions counselor at a pre-college summer program for Native Americans. He has worked on the Mars Science Laboratory, InSight, and Mars 2020 missions.

Personal life Yazzie's parents were both first generation college students and he credits them with encouraging him to get a college education. He is actively involved in outreach to Native students and attributes success in his career to the work ethic instilled in him by his Navajo upbringing.

Yazzie has had a long involvement with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). He was an AISES college scholarship recipient, as well as the president of the Stanford chapter. Since graduating, he has become an AISES Sequoyah Fellow (lifetime member).

He currently lives in Pasadena, California.