Jeannette Benavides

Jeannette Benavides
Born	(1952-07-07) 7 July 1952 (age 73) Heredia, Costa Rica
Alma mater	Liceo de Heredia High School University of Costa Rica (BSc) American University (MSc, PhD)
Scientific career
Institutions	Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Benavidesand the second or maternal family name is Gamboa.

JeannetteM. Benavides Gamboa (born 7 July 1952) is a Costa Rican nanotechnologist and physical chemist. She worked at NASA from 1986 until her retirement in 2006 and developed a new process in carbon nanotubes.

Biography

Benavides was born on 7 July 1952 in Heredia, Costa Rica, ^{[1] [2]} and was educated at Braulio Morales School and Liceo de Heredia High School. ^[1]

Benavides studied a BSc in Chemistry at the University of Costa Rica, graduating in 1975. ^[1] She achieved a MSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the American University in Washington D. C. ^[3]

Benavides worked at NASA from 1986 until her retirement in 2006. ^{[1] [3] [4]} At NASA, she worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center on metal-through-metal diffusion in electrical gold-coated pins, which has been used in the Cassini Space Probe mission to Saturn. ^[3] She was also named as the inventor for two patents of the development of a new process in carbon nanotubes and is credited with reducing the cost and creating a purer and safer product. ^{[3] [5] [6]} She was honoured at the Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 Awards for her work. ^{[5] [7]}

Isaac Martín School in Costa Rica have named its Chemistry Laboratory after Benavides. ^[1]

Select publications

• Benavides, J. M., "Kinetics of Water Absorption Using a Karl Fisher Coulometric Instrument", NASA Parts and Advanced Interconnection Program, No. 3, 1996.
• Benavides, J. M., "Evaluation of a Procedure for the Measurement of Thin Film Thickness by X-ray Reflectivity", NASA Technical Paper #3697, September 1997.
• Benavides, J. M., "Synthesis of a Magnetic Polyvinylferrocene –Tetracyanoethylene Complex", American University, December 1998.

References

1. "JEANNETTE BENAVIDES Ph. D". Consejo Nacional para Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
2. Tv Sur Pérez Zeledón (26 September 2014). Científica de la Nasa motiva a niños y jóvenes a especializarse en ciencias . Retrieved 10 October 2025– via YouTube.
3. Callow, Bruce (2 August 2016). "Behind the scenes at NASA: meet Costa Rican space pioneers". The Tico Times. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
4. Arroyo, Franklin (13 October 2018). "Le contamos la historia de la tica que pudo ser astronauta, pero prefirió hacer una brillante carrera en la NASA como científica". La Teja (in Spanish). Retrieved 10 October 2025.
5. "NASA Innovation Builds Better Nanotubes". NASA Spinoff. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
6. NASA Tech Briefs. Vol. 31. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 2007. p. 8.
7. "NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Carbon Nanotube Manufacturing Technology Wins Nano 50 Award". NASA. Archived from the original on 18 May 2017. Retrieved 10 October 2025.