of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science in 2000, and received a Peace Award for Education from the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Houston, and Cornell University in 2000 estab- lished a lecture series to honor Dr. Tapia and David Blackwell, a professor from the University of California at Berke- ley. The lectures provide a research forum for African American, Latino and American Indian scientists working in mathematical and statistical sciences.
President Bill Clinton named Dr. Tapia to the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, in 1996, and selected him for a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engi- neering Mentoring. In 1992, Dr. Tapia became the first Hispanic to be elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Small Beginnings, Big Moves
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers- sponsored Women in Action conference to celebrate the ac- complishments of Hispanic professional women, spent 13 years in the “Maqila- dora” assembly-works industries of Northern Mexico before moving to General Motors as a manufacturing engineer.
up to the day he left to complete high school in the United States.
Sidney Gutierrez
Sidney Gutierrez followed Chang-Diaz’s selection to be an astronaut in 1984. The 1973 Air Force Academy graduate and member of the acad- emy’s National Collegiate Championship Air Acad- emy Parachute Team, also holds a Master of Arts degree in manage-
A holder of a Hispanic Engineer Nation- al Achievement Award, she now works as GM’s Global Commodity manager, Media, Advertising, Print.
Bursting into the Skies Henry Cisneros
Recall that in 1981, Henry Cisneros became the first Hispanic mayor of a major city in the United States when he was elected chief executive of San Antonio, Texas, the nation’s 10th largest city. That was the same year Diane N. De Hoyos graduated from Bowling Green State University with a major in comprehensive science (Chemistry). She earned a second degree in Spanish, and later won the university’s Distinguished Spanish Alumnus Award. She earned her Master of Science degree in manufacturing engineering at the University of Texas-El Paso, and her thesis, “ A Study of the Factors Influencing Productivity in a U.S. and Maquila Manufacturing Operations,” has been presented nationally and internationally.
De Hoyos, in 1996 the founder of a
www.hispanicengineer.com
Look at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s website, and you’ll see pictures of 13 Hispanic astronauts. Among them, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, born in San Jose, Costa Rica, became the first Hispanic Ameri- can to be selected to ride into space aboard thundering rocket power in 1980, just before De Hoyos finished college. His first space shuttle mission came in 1986, and he completed three spacewalks with Phillipe Perrin as part of the construction of the International Space Station. Director of Johnson Space Flight Center’s Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory from 1993 till 2005, Chang-Diaz retired and set up the Ad Astra Rocket Company, dedi- cated to the development of advanced plasma rocket propulsion technology.
Dr. Chang-Diaz, educated at the Collegio de La Salle in Costa Rica, and at Hartford High School in Connecticut as well as the University of Connecti- cut and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also has published a book, The First Years, about his child- hood in Ven- ezuela and
Costa Rica,
Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz
ment from Webster University. He was an F-15 Eagle pilot and test pilot before becoming an astronaut and flying aloft on space shuttle missions STS 40 and STS 59. After the Challenger disaster, Gutierrez served as an action officer for NASA’s associate administer for space flight, then supported presidential com- mission and congressional investiga- tions of the accident. In 1994, Gutierrez retired from government service and joined Sandia National Laboratory, where he is now a director.
Dr. Ellen Ochoa joined the astronauts in 1990, and became the first Hispanic woman to fly in space. A holder of the B.S. degree in physics from San Diego State University and Master of Science and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Dr. Ochoa patented an optical system to detect defects in a repeating pattern. At NASA’s Ames Research Center, Dr. Ochoa led research on optical systems for space exploration.
On a nine-day space shuttle mission in 1993, Dr. Ochoa participated in studies of the Earth’s ozone layer. Among her several shuttle missions, she also flew aboard Discovery in 1999, and she last flew in 2002. She has spent more than 978 hours in space. In her honor, the Pasco School District No. 1 in Pasco, Wash- ington, has named a middle school after her.
Today, she is dep- uty director of the Johnson Space Flight Center,
handling day-to-day HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | 2010 49
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