Champions of Change
Rafael San Miguel began his career at NASA working on the Space Shuttle program, and has spent the past 23 years as a scientist for The Coca-Cola Company. He also serves as a board member of the Atlanta Speech School, an 80-year old private institution focused on meeting the needs of those with speech and language based disabilities. Rafael, who has been profoundly deaf since infancy, creates awareness about disability by focusing on ability as he inspires young people to pursue education in science and math. Using his unique format that presents science in an exciting way, he has volunteered at schools both locally and in communities where he travels by connecting with underserved schools through the volunteer network of Points of Light. Rafael is now turning his energies toward a call to action and creating an initiative called the U.S. Science Project focused on inspiring individual scientists, businesses, legislators and community leaders to scale efforts for engaging in impact-driven volunteerism to begin to fill the science deficit in our nation through a volunteer Science Corps. Rafael San Miguel is being honored as a Champion of Change for leading education and employment efforts in science, technology, engineering and math for Americans with disabilities.