From Fear to Freedom: How a Tech Visionary Overcame Fear to Soar

course Instructor

Cecilia Aragon is a computer scientist, professor, awardwinning author, and champion aerobatic pilot. The cofounder of Latinas in Computing, she is the first Latina to earn the rank of Full Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Washington in its 100-year history, and also the first Latina pilot to represent the United States in the World Aerobatic Championships. Her memoir, Flying Free: My Victory Over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team, shares her journey of breaking past her own fears to become a competitive pilot. 

The daughter of a Chilean father and a Filipina mother, Cecilia Aragon grew up as a shy, timid child in a small midwestern town. Targeted by school bullies and dismissed by many of her teachers, she suffered from a paralyzing lack of confidence. This feeling stayed with her well into her twenties when she was told that “girls can’t do science” or “women just don’t know how to handle machines.” Yet in the span of just six years, Cecilia became the first Latina pilot to secure a place on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team and earn the right to represent her country at the Olympics of aviation, the World Aerobatic Championships. How did she do it?

Using mathematical techniques to overcome her fear, Cecilia performed at air shows in front of millions of people. She jumped out of airplanes and taught others how to fly. She learned how to fund-raise and earned money to compete at the world level. She worked as a test pilot and contributed to the design of experimental airplanes, crafting curves of metal and fabric that shaped air to lift inanimate objects high above the earth. And best of all, she surprised everyone by overcoming the prejudices people held about her because of her race and her gender

Dr. Aragon directs the Human-Centered Data Science Lab at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on analysis of vast data sets. Her awards for research, and a stint designing software for NASA, led President Obama to call her "one of the top scientists and engineers in the country” when she received the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She has worked with Nobel Prize winners, taught astronauts to fly, and created musical simulations of the universe with rock stars. She is the author of Flying Free (Blackstone 2020), Human-Centered Data Science (MIT Press 2022), and Writers in the Secret Garden: Fanfiction, Youth, and New Forms of Mentoring (MIT Press 2019). She has spoken at major corporations such as TED, Google, Nokia, Roche Laboratories, and
IBM; top universities and national labs such as Stanford and MIT; and has keynoted national and international conferences.