Casablanca- News that Moroccan Asmaa Boujibar was hired by NASA went viral in recent days, with countless news outlets reporting on it and thousands of people sharing it on social media. MWN also reported it, though we noted that Asmaa Boujibar’s name does not appear on NASA's website as an official employee.
In our quest for accuracy, we were curious to know for sure if Asmaa Boujibar had joined NASA.After a thorough search, we can confirm that the news reported by Moroccan media was not accurate.
A source from Washington D.C told MWN that Boujibar is not an employee at the American space agency, but is rather a “potential” post-doctorate intern.
According to the same source, she is expected to start an internship with NASA this September, but “she is not formally accepted yet.”
The same source noted that Asmaa would be an intern and not a full employee, one of the more than 300 post docs that NASA receives from around the world every year.
However, in an interview with news website Medias24, Boujibar said that she was “the first Moroccan woman to join NASA.”
Boujibar also told Medias24 that she only needed to obtain her doctorate to be fully qualified to join NASA.
“I haven’t signed my employment contract yet, because I still have to finish my doctorate research,” said Boujibar.
“At NASA, I will work on the chemical evolution of planets,” she added.
The 27-year-old Moroccan researcher, who is from northern Morocco, is the daughter of a Moroccan architect, and a Tunisian mother. Asmaa Boujibar studied at Université Blaise Pascal – Clermont-Ferrand II in France.
She obtained her master’s degree in 2010, after working on a thesis entitled “Study of chemical equilibrium between mantle and core in the context of the formation of terrestrial planets.”
Edited by Jessica Rohan
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