Kwatsi Alibaruho '95 became NASA's first black Mission Control flight director on duty, a position then occupied by only 58 people since the beginning of the American space program. He was part of the 2005 cohort of flight directors, the second largest ever appointed and the most diverse at the time.

Alibaruho attributes his success as a NASA space shuttle flight director to a strong parental influence on academics, tenacity and hard work, and a life-long fascination with space and exploration. He was a flight director on duty for the STS-129 Atlantis mission flown in 2009 by fellow MIT alum Robert L. Satcher, Jr. ’86, PhD ’93.
 

I love the diversity of challenges in space exploration and in mission operations...There is nothing about my job that is routine.

Kwatsi Alibaruho, 2005