Our newsletters highlight a variety of people, organizations, and resources that are doing work to broaden participation and expand equitable and engaging computer science and STEM opportunities. We are honored to work in this space along with so many talented and passionate individuals and want to help bring attention to their work.
This Week’s Spotlight and Project-Inspiration Theme: Dr. Ellen Ochoa
This week’s focus is Dr. Ellen Ochoa
Dr. Ellen Ochoa has accomplished much in the world of STEM as a former NASA astronaut and former Director of Johnson Space Center. Her birthday was on May 10th, so this week we wanted to shine our spotlight on her life and accomplishments!
Born on May 10th, 1958 in Los Angeles, Ellen Ochoa earned a bachelor of science degree in physics from San Diego State University and a Master’s of Science Degree and Doctorate from Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering. Dr. Ochoa went on to research optical systems for information processing at Sandia National Laboratories and at the Nasa Ames Research Center.
Dr. Ochoa became an astronaut in 1991, and became the first Hispanic Female in space in 1993 during a nine day mission on the Space Shuttle Discovery to study the Earth’s ozone layer. She would go on to log over 1000 hours in space across four spaceflights! In 2013, she went on to become the second female and first Hispanic director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Dr. Ellen Ochoa definitely blazed a trail in the world of STEM for females and Hispanics to follow. Her research and work has left a lasting impact, and we want to say thank you and happy birthday to Dr. Ochoa! You can learn more about Dr. Ochoa through her biography or Wikipedia page.
This week as you are building your own STEM skills, we challenge you to create a project that honors Dr. Ochoa. Could you build a Scratch project that shares the story of her work?
Share Your CS to Go Projects!
How to Share: We invite CS to Go with Code Savvy participants to consider sharing your projects publicly with the Code Savvy and greater #MNCodes community via video with Flipgrid. We can’t wait to see what you create! Please be sure to follow online safety guidelines and get adult permission before sharing. You can find our Privacy Policy here.