Franklin Chang-Diaz is a physicist and former NASA astronaut. He was enamored by the idea of becoming an astronaut since childhood. As a teenager, he moved to the United States to pursue that dream and, once assimilated to life in the U.S., started his college career. He experienced some difficulty early in his education because he was not a citizen of the U.S., but he overcame those obstacles and attended college. He majored in mechanical engineering and did his post doctorate work in plasma physics. While conducting postgraduate research in nuclear fusion, he applied to NASA to become a part of the astronaut program. They accepted him and, despite being a scientist and not a member of the military as most astronauts once were, he went on to become one of the most-flown astronauts in the program. He completed seven missions to space, the last of which was to repair parts of the International Space Station in 2002. He worked for NASA up until 2005 when he retired, after receiving several awards from NASA for his work. He then established his own company where he has pursued research on engineering space shuttles for faster and more efficient travel. He is also an activist on climate change awareness.