Paige Valderrama Graff

Paige Valderrama Graff was born and raised in Staten Island, New York. Her academic and athletic ability earned her a college scholarship to Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. While at Indiana University, she balanced her athletics with her studies, as she majored in Education with a major focus on Spanish and French. She participated in a university-sponsored program that brought her to Nogales, Arizona where she finished her education degree. Following her six-month stay in Nogales, Paige was offered a teaching position at Wade Carpenter Middle School and a head track coach position at Nogales High School. Paige taught a variety of subjects throughout her years at Wade Carpenter, but soon focused her attention on teaching Math and sponsoring the MESA (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) Club. This academic club provided activities and competitions for her students to compete with other students from around the state of Arizona, in which they always did with top honors.

Paige also participated in numerous professional development opportunities. In 1998, she was accepted to participate in a 2-week NASA Educational Workshop at Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. This experience allowed her to create a new elective course focusing on aeronautics at her school. Additionally, Paige started participating in many Arizona State University Mars Education Educator workshops and field tours. It was this experience that brought the influence of Mars education into Paige’s classroom. In the year 2000, Paige was 1 of 2 Americans selected by NSTA and NASA to attend a 3-week remote sensing conference in La Londe Les Mares, Vars France. She also was the lead teacher for The Planetary Society’s Red Rover Goes To Mars Student Scientists Program. With this program, she mentored students from around the world on Mars exploration using distance-learning techniques. This remote team of students visited the United States in February of 2001 and with the leadership of Paige, their teacher, they were able to model what scientists do in order to image a site on Mars and be able to analyze their image as well. This international group of students became the first public group to use a NASA instrument (the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on board the Mars Global Surveyor). In one particular image they discovered a mysterious outcrop of big black boulders, which still intrigues scientists today.

On a community level, Paige began a community-wide Challenger Center Window on the Universe Program. As the team leader, she coordinated large community activities, for Santa Cruz County, that reached thousands of individuals of all ages. As a Solar System Ambassador for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Paige also brought the exciting world of NASA and their amazing missions to her community and especially to her classroom students.
In August of 2001, Paige accepted a position as Assistant Director of the Arizona State University Mars Education Program. Her new position allows for her love of teaching and her love of Mars exploration to meld together.