A specialist in optics and optical recognition in robotics, Ellen Ochoa (born 1958) is noted both for her distinguished work in inventions and patents and for her role in American space exploration. She is now the veteran of three Space Shuttle flights.

Among Ellen Ochoa's optical systems innovations are a device that detects flaws and image recognition apparatus. In the late 1980s she began working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an optical specialist. After leading a project team, Ochoa was selected for NASA's space flight program. She made her first flight on the space shuttle Discovery in April 1993, becoming the first Hispanic woman astronaut.

The third of five children of Rosanne (Deardorff) and Joseph Ochoa, she was born May 10, 1958, in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in La Mesa, California; her father was a manager of a retail store and her mother a homemaker. Ochoa...