Chief Engineer of JPL’s Guidance and Control Section.
Miguel graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 1982, and then received a master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985. Upon graduation, he was hired by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he has worked for 39 years. Early in his career, he contributed to the Magellan mission to Venus and the Cassini mission to Saturn. He was later the Chief Engineer for the Guidance and Control subsystem for the Mars Pathfinder mission, the Mars Exploration Rovers, and the Mars Science Laboratory where he was also the Deputy Phase Lead for Entry, Descent, and Landing. He is currently the Chief Engineer of JPL’s Guidance and Control Section. He was named JPL Fellow in 2013 and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2019. Miguel was the co-lead of the Technology Chapter of the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032.