Ellen Ochoa

• Born: May 10, 1958
• Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California

AMERICAN ASTRONAUT AND INVENTOR

Ochoa was the first Latina to become an astronaut. She had flown on four space flights by 2011 and holds three patents as an inventor or coinventor of optical systems used for space imaging. Ochoa was named director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, in 2013.

Early Life

Ellen Lauri Ochoa was born May 10, 1958, in Los Angeles, California, to Rosanne Deardorff Ochoa, a homemaker, and Joseph Ochoa, the manager of a retail store. Ochoa grew up in La Mesa, California. The third of five children, Ochoa was an outstanding student who excelled in the sciences and mathematics. In her family, education was considered very important, and the children were encouraged in their intellectual activities. Ochoa had many interests. At age thirteen, she won the San Diego County spelling bee. She also played classical flute and was a member of the Civic Youth Orchestra in San Diego.

Ochoa’s parents divorced when she was twelve years old. Even with the changes in her family life, she continued to excel academically and graduated with honors as the class valedictorian from Grossmont High School in La Mesa in 1975. Ochoa was offered a four-year scholarship to Stanford University but turned it down to stay near home and help her mother raise her younger siblings.

Ochoa instead went to San Diego State University as a music major. She changed her major five times before graduating in 1980 as class valedictorian with a bachelor of science degree in physics. She then went to Stanford University on an engineering fellowship and received her master’s degree in electrical engineering in 1981. Ochoa received an IBM Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from 1982 to 1984 and focused her work on designing optical systems for information processing. Her doctoral dissertation on the use of photorefractive crystals to filter images from space resulted in a patent in 1987. While at Stanford, Ochoa also played the flute and was an award-winning soloist in the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. In 1985, she received her doctorate in electrical engineering.

Life’s Work

From 1985 to 1988, Ochoa was a researcher in imaging technology at the Sandia National Laboratories. She continued her work on optical systems used for filtering space images and developed an optical system to guide robots. After three years, Ochoa joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Ames Research Center and worked with a research team developing optical recognition systems as applied to space images. She also helped develop computer systems for aeronautical expeditions. Ochoa’s work resulted in two additional patents as coinventor of an optical object recognition system and a method for noise removal in images.

Although Ochoa became interested in the astronaut program while she was at Stanford, NASA was not accepting female candidates. After two other attempts, Ochoa was chosen in January 1990 as one of five women and eighteen men to begin training at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. That year, she married Coe Fulmer Miles, a computer research engineer she met at Ames Research Center. They later had two sons, Wilson and Jordan.

In July 1991, Ochoa finished training and qualified as a mission specialist. Her first mission was on the April 4-17, 1993, flight of the space shuttle Discovery, followed shortly thereafter by the Atlantis shuttle flight November 3-14, 1994. Both the May 27-June 6, 1999, Discovery flight and the April 8-19, 2002, Atlantis flight visited the International Space Station. In total, Ochoa logged more than 978 hours in space. She was awarded a 1995 NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, four NASA Space Flight Medals, a 1991 NASA Group Achievement Award for photonics technology, a NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal in 1997.

While in the Astronaut Office, Ochoa served in various roles and became the deputy director of flight crew operations in December 2002. In September 2006, Ochoa was named the director of flight crew operations, in which capacity she managed and directed the Astronaut Office and aircraft operations at Johnson Space Center. In September 2007, Ochoa was named deputy director of Johnson Space Center, where her responsibilities included planning and organizing the day-to-day management of the space shuttle program. In January 2013, Ochoa became the director of Johnson Space Center, upon the retirement of Michael Coats. She served in that position until her retirement in 2018.

In 2024, Ochoa was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. The award was bestowed by President Joe Biden.

Significance

In interviews, Ochoa has indicated that she never felt that her Latina heritage either helped or hindered her. She has, however, served as a role model for minorities and women in the fields of science and engineering. She has talked with thousands of students, sharing her life experiences and encouraging young people to set goals and stay in school. Ochoa is passionate about encouraging students to follow their dreams and not be discouraged, thus inspiring young women to choose fields that challenge them and benefit society.

Ochoa has received numerous awards and honors, including having five schools named after her, among them Ellen Ochoa Middle School in Pasco, Washington, and Ellen Ochoa Learning Center in Cudahy, California. She also was the first woman to be named engineer of the year by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference. In 2017 she was inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Bibliography

"Ellen Ochoa." NASA, 18 June 2024, www.nasa.gov/people/ellen-ochoa/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

Hasday, Judy L. Ellen Ochoa. New York: Chelsea House, 2007.

"NASA Astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa." NASA, 17 July 2023, www.nasa.gov/people/nasa-astronaut-dr-ellen-ochoa/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

Paige, Joy. Ellen Ochoa: The First Hispanic Woman in Space. New York: Rosen, 2004.

Schraff, Anne. Ellen Ochoa: Astronaut and Inventor. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2010.

Thorsberg, Christian. "Ellen Ochoa, Former NASA Astronaut and First Hispanic Woman in Space, Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom." Smithsonian, 7 May 2024, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ellen-ochoa-former-nasa-astronaut-and-first-hispanic-woman-in-space-receives-presidential-medal-of-freedom-180984314/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

Woodmansee, Laura S. Women Astronauts. Toronto: Apogee Books, 2002.