Sylvia Acevedo has had bold dreams and dared to live them as a woman in STEM who is passionate about education for all. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in industrial engineering from New Mexico State University and a Master of Science in systems engineering from Stanford University. She was one of the first Hispanic students, male or female, to earn that degree from Stanford.

Beginning her career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sylvia created algorithms and analyzed data from Voyager 2’s spacecraft flyby of Jupiter and two of its moons, lo and Europa. She went on to work as an engineer and executive at Apple, Dell, Autodesk, and IBM, and as an advocate for educational equality. She is a strong voice for girls’ education, especially in the STEM fields.

Sylvia is a founding member of the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin, Texas, and in 2010 she was appointed by President Barack Obama as the chair of the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanics in Early Childhood. Most recently, Sylvia served as a board member and CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA. She was appointed interim CEO in 2016 and became permanent from 2017 through 2020. Coming full circle from her youth as a Girl Scout in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Sylvia spearheaded the largest rollout of badges in recent history—more than 100 badges in STEM and the outdoors, including weather-pattern analysis, space science, robotics, coding, app and game development, and cybersecurity.

Sylvia has been recognized widely for her accomplishments in business and education. She has also been named one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” number seven on InStyle’s list of “50 Women Who Are Changing the World,” and one of the Forbes “Top 50 Women in American Tech.”

Sylvia has been named Latino Leaders Magazine “100 Most Influential Latinas,” and is the recipient of the Ohtli Award, the Mexican government’s highest honor for a non-citizen. Sylvia is the author of Path to the Stars: My Journey from Girl Scout to Rocket Scientist, a memoir for middle school students that inspires readers to live the lives of their dreams.