Skip to main content
News Releases

Ellen Ochoa reappointed to Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Houston Branch board

For immediate release: January 22, 2016

DALLAS—The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has re-appointed Ellen Ochoa to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ Houston Branch board of directors. She will serve a three-year term ending Dec. 31, 2018.

As a board member, she will provide input on regional economic conditions as part of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy functions.

A veteran astronaut, Ochoa is the 11th director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She is also an engineer, research scientist and inventor. Prior to being named director in 2012, Ochoa served as deputy director for five years, beginning in 2007.

Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to go into space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1993. An astronaut since 1991, she has flown four times and logged nearly 1,000 hours in space. She is a co-inventor on three patents for optical systems and has presented numerous papers at technical conferences and in scientific journals. 

Ochoa has received NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal, Exceptional Service Medal, Outstanding Leadership Medal and four Space Flight Medals. She also has been honored with the Harvard Foundation Science Award, Women in Aerospace Outstanding Achievement Award, Hispanic Engineer Albert Baez Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution to Humanity and Hispanic Heritage Leadership Award.

Ochoa is honored to have four schools named for her, including one in Grand Prairie, Texas.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from San Diego State University and a master’s degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

The Houston Branch board consists of seven members, four appointed by the Dallas Fed and three by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C.

For more information on the Dallas Fed, visit www.dallasfed.org.

-30-

Media contact:
James Hoard
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Phone: (214) 922-5307
Email: james.hoard@dal.frb.org