Dr. Ellen Ochoa served as the first female captain of the United States Air Force and commanded the Space Shuttle program for over three years. She holds more than 150 patents and was awarded NASA's Exceptional Service Medal in 1986. Ellen is the recipient of many distinguished NASA awards, including the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, the NASA Humanitarian Award, and the Exceptional Public Service Medal
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She had a distinguished career in academia, serving as a professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She was also a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Stanford University and a professor of Physics at Caltech. Dr.
Ochoa also worked on several classified projects for the Department of Defense and Department of Energy while she was at Stanford University. In 1985, Dr. Ochoa became the first female Hispanic to receive a doctorate from UCLA.
In 1993 she became a member of MIT's Society of Women Engineers and in 2002 was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 2003, Dr. Ochoa received the highest civilian honor from President Bush when he presented her with the Congressional Gold Medal for her contributions to science and engineering excellence in aviation technology.