Ellen Ochoa honored as hispanic 2008 engineer of the year

Johnson Space Center Deputy Director Ellen Ochoa has been chosen as the first woman to receive the Engineer of the Year award by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference. This award recognizes overall leadership and technical achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

I am delighted to receive this award,” said Ochoa. “I feel very privileged to be working in a field I’m passionate about, surrounded by intelligent and hardworking people. I hope to inspire our community, particularly young women, to choose an education in fields that challenge them and benefit society as a whole.”

Ochoa earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from San Diego State University and a master’s degree and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University. She managed the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., before being selected as an astronaut in 1990. She flew on four space shuttle missions, logging 978 hours in space. She became deputy director of flight crew operations at JSC in December 2002 and director of flight crew operations in September 2006. She was appointed deputy director of JSC in September 2007.