When Ali Guarneros Luna immigrated to California from Mexico City, the path to a college education seemed to slam shut almost immediately. Proposition 187, passed by California voters in 1994, threatened to cut off access to public services, including higher education, for undocumented immigrants. Many doors closed. One opened.
“San José City College opened a door for me,” Guarneros Luna told members of the San José–Evergreen Community College District Board of Trustees on March 10. “Community college is not just an option — it is an opportunity to move forward.”
That door, it turned out, led to NASA.
Guarneros Luna, now a Senior Space Architect at Lockheed Martin and aerospace engineering professor at San José State University, was the keynote voice in a college showcase presentation highlighting SJCC’s MESA program, Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement, a program that has become one of the college’s most consequential engines of student success. She spent 15 years as a NASA civil servant at Ames Research Center, contributing to technologies for the International Space Station and leading development of small satellite systems. She built her academic foundation in physics, math, and English at the very institution where she was speaking.
Her story is extraordinary. But at SJCC, it is also becoming less rare.
A Program That Meets Students Where They Are
MESA serves first-generation and low-income college students with ambitions to transfer to four-year universities and earn calculus-based STEM degrees in fields ranging from engineering and computer science to biology and chemistry. Since spring 2023, the program has admitted 240 students, helped 61 transfer to four-year institutions, and awarded scholarships to more than 20 students. MESA students have participated in 12 STEM conferences and completed 44 summer research internships through a partnership with San José State University. Five Stanford University research programs, including the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, have hosted MESA students.
It is, by any measure, a remarkable record for a program still in its early years.
“MESA is so much more than academic support,” said Chynna Obana, the program’s director, who presented alongside the students and guest speakers. “We’re building a community, a place where students feel seen, supported, and connected to the opportunities that can change the course of their lives. From tutoring and transfer counseling to internships, industry tours, and career development, we’re giving students every tool they need to succeed in STEM.”
The numbers behind the program reflect a deeper urgency. Nationally, Hispanic and Latino students earn just 12 percent of STEM degrees. Black students earn 7 percent. Yet STEM careers remain among the fastest-growing and highest-paying fields in the American economy, particularly in Silicon Valley, where SJCC sits. The gap between who enters these fields and who could be entering them is precisely the space MESA is designed to close.
Three Students, Three Journeys
Three students took the podium on March 10. Each told a different story. Each story circled back to the same place.
Venus Ho graduated from high school in San Francisco in 2020, then spent two years working to support her family through the pandemic. She enrolled at SJCC in January 2023 and, in the years that followed, interned at NASA’s NCAS program, gained hands-on computer science experience through Adobe’s Career Academy, and secured a research internship at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Last August, she began pursuing dual bachelor’s degrees in computer science and biochemistry at Arizona State University. She closed her remarks with a quote from Confucius that she said had guided her: “It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.”
Zoë Marshall’s path back to school was paved with grief. She was diagnosed with ADHD late in life, struggled to find her footing academically, and then, just as she returned to school, her father received a cancer diagnosis. She withdrew from her classes. Less than a year after his death, she came back.
MESA, she said, breathed life back into her goals. Through the program, she completed a summer research internship at SJSU, studying methods for managing Parkinson’s disease symptoms using real-time neural data. She attended the Great Minds in STEM Conference in San Diego, worked with industry professionals to workshop her resume, and enrolled in a project-based class that connected her directly with environmental scientists in the field.
Maritza Luna Lozada, a biology and environmental science major, came to MESA as a first-generation student navigating a college system with few guides. The program helped her revise her personal insight questions, polish her resume, and find the confidence to aim high, applying to UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Riverside. She presented her research on native bee biodiversity at a poster symposium and attended Stanford’s SUMMA conference for minority students in the medical sciences. “Because of this program,” she told the board, “I’m able to stand tall and go into spaces and say: this is who I am.”
The Bigger Investment
Guarneros Luna, who mentored community college and university students during her NASA years and now shapes the next generation in the classroom, framed the stakes plainly for the trustees. Investing in programs like MESA, she argued, is not charity — it is strategy.
“When we invest in MESA,” Obana echoed, “we’re not just helping individual students. We’re developing the engineers, scientists, and innovators who will drive economic growth right here in Silicon Valley and beyond.”
One door, opened at the right moment, can lead anywhere. San José City College is in the business of opening them.
