On Dec. 31, 2012, Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic and second female director of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Ochoa, who was born in Los Angeles on May 10, 1958 is the third of five children in a family of Mexican immigrants that settled in La Mesa, California.
She graduated from Grossmont High School in 1975 and studied physics at San Diego State University. Ellen went on to receive her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford years later. Ochoa is married and has two children. According to her biography on the official NASA website she is also a classically trained flute player who enjoys to play volleyball an bicycling.
In 1985 while working as a scientist, Ochoa applied for a job at NASA, but it wasn't until January 1990 that she was selected to join the NASA team. In July 1991, Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic female astronaut and two years later, she was the first Hispanic woman to go into space.
Her remarkable career as an astronaut includes almost a thousand hours of space flight as well as vast experience as a crew member on both the Discovery and Atlantis in special research missions to study the atmosphere and the solar system.
Ellen has received several honors from NASA highlighting her accomplishments, including: the Medal For Exceptional Service (1997), the Medal of Excellent Leadership (1995), Space Flight Medals on three separate occasions (1993-1994-1999) and two Technical Space Awards (1992). In addition to her work in NASA Ochoa holds three patents for her co-inventions in the field of optics.
Ellen Ochoa's outstanding role as an important figure and role model to the Hispanic community was recognized during the Hispanic Heritage Month on Sept. 14, 2011 and she is widely regarded as a trailblazer for both women and people of Hispanic descent in the realm of science. Pasco, Washington named one of their most recent schools the Ellen Ochoa Elementary School as well.
Her new position as Head of the Johnson Space Center, will not prove to be an easy one. According to the Houston Chronicle she will oversee an operation that has seen a significant reduction in funds of about $2 billion in the last few years, and a reduced workforce of civil servants and contractors diminished from 17,000 to nearly 13,000, as well.