Featured Woman in STEM: Ellen Ochoa
Dr. Ellen Ochoa is an engineer and former astronaut. In 1993 she became the first Hispanic woman to travel to space! Twenty years later, she again made history as the first Hispanic director, and the second female director, of Johnson Space Center.
Career and Accomplishments
Ellen Ochoa was born in 1958 in Los Angeles, California. She earned a bachelor's degree in physics from San Diego State University (1980) and a master's degree (1981) and doctorate (1985) in electrical engineering from Stanford University. She worked at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)—one of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s three research and development labs—and then joined NASA in 1988 as a research engineer at the Ames Research Center. There, she invented and researched optics systems for automated space exploration, and supervised dozens of engineers and scientists.
In 1990, Dr. Ochoa was selected to be an astronaut. She made history in 1993, as the first Hispanic woman to go to space, when she served on the nine-day STS-56 mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery. She has flown in space four times, logging nearly 1,000 hours in orbit and serving as a mission specialist, payload commander, and flight engineer.
ellen ochoa aboard the space shuttle discovery, making history on mission sts-56 (image courtesy: Smithsonian national air & space museum)
After retiring from spacecraft operations, Dr. Ochoa joined the leadership of the Johnson Space Center (JSC), where she continued blazing trails. She served as Deputy Director of the JSC from 2007 to 2013, and as Director from 2013 to 2018—the first Hispanic director, and only the second female director, in JSC’s history! In 2018, Dr. Ochoa was named Vice Chair of the National Science Board.
Dr. Ochoa’s Official jsc portrait, 2014 (image credit: wikimedia commons)
Dr. Ochoa has been recognized with NASA's highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award for senior executives in the federal government. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). She chairs the committee evaluating nominations for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement.
In Her Own Words
In this short piece for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Dr. Ochoa discusses her experience as an astronaut and inventor, and the importance of supporting women in STEM:
