Milwaukee native part of NASA's Mars rover mission Milwaukee native working on Perseverance rover Mars mission A Milwaukee native and proud graduate of Riverside High School and UW-Milwaukee is excited to begin the work, working on the Perseverance mission. Darian Dixon is the Mastcam-Z data management lead. MILWAUKEE - NASA's Perseverance rover beamed new images back to Earth from Mars on Friday, Feb. 19. Its mission: Search for evidence of ancient life on the Red Planet. A Milwaukee native and proud graduate of Riverside High School and UW-Milwaukee is excited to begin the work, working on the Perseverance mission. "For me, it was always about finding a pathway, in my mind, because that was something that I wanted to do. But I had no idea how I would get there," said Darian Dixon.