Elena ochoa biography

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    Ellen Ochoa

    American astronaut and engineer (born 1958)

    Ellen Ochoa (born May 10, 1958) is an American engineer, former astronaut and former director of the Johnson Space Center.[1] In 1993, Ochoa became the first Latina woman to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.[2] Ochoa became director of the center upon the retirement of the previous director, Michael Coats, on December 31, 2012.[3] She was the first Latina director and the second female director of Johnson Space Center.

    Early life and education

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    Ellen Lauri Ochoa was born on May 10, 1958, in Los Angeles, California,[4] to Joseph and Rosanne (née Deardorff) Ochoa. Her paternal grandparents emigrated from Sonora, Mexico, to Arizona and later to California where her father was born.[5] She grew up in La Mesa, California.[1] Ochoa was the middle child of five and neither parent had college degrees.[6

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    Ellen Ochoa

    Ellen Ochoa’s career offers an outstanding example of how invention can lead to adventure. She established herself as an innovative engineer and went on to become the world’s first Hispanic female astronaut.  

    Ochoa was born May 10, 1958 in Los Angeles, but she grew up in La Mesa, California.  Throughout her youth, she devoted herself to music as well as math and science. When she graduated from San Diego State University in 1980 with a BS in Physics, Ochoa was considering a career either as a classical flutist or in business.  But instead, mindful of her mother’s insistence on the importance of education, Ochoa chose to enter graduate school at Stanford University.  

    When Neil Armstrong had first walked on the moon (July 1969), Ochoa was 11 years old. It never would have occurred to her then that she too might someday become an astronaut.  However, in 1983, when Ochoa was midway between earning her MS (1981) and PhD (1985) in Electr

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    NASA Astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa

    Dr. Ellen Ochoa, a veteran astronaut, was the 11th director of the Johnson Space Center. She was JSC’s first Hispanic director, and its second female director.   Her previous management roles include Deputy Center Director and Director of Flight Crew Operations. 

    Ochoa joined NASA in 1988 as a research engineer at Ames Research Center and moved to Johnson Space Center in 1990 when she was selected as an astronaut.  She became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on the nine-day STS-56 mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1993. She has flown in space four times, including STS-66, STS-96 and STS-110, logging nearly 1,000 hours in orbit.

    Born in California, Ochoa earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from San Diego State University and a master’s degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.  As a research engineer at Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames Res

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