On June 18, 1983, a 32-year-old physicist from California shattered the gender barrier, becoming the first American woman in space aboard the shuttle Challenger. That brave lady was the late Sally Ride.
Since Ride's historic flight, the face of the space program has undergone a literal transformation as it works toward narrowing the gender gap that persistently plagues the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.
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"I honestly believe the view of women in STEM fields has changed positively, even it is a slow evolution," says Mamta Nagaraja, the manager of Women@NASA, a program created to highlight the success of female scientists and engineers.
Over the last decade, the number of female supervisors has increased by 59 percent for a total of 30 percent women supervisors. The number of women aerospace engineers has made an even greater leap. Today, 20 percent of NASA engineers are female, which represents a 76 percent increase since the early '90s.
Overall, about 6,000 of NASA's 18,000 civil service employee workforce are now women, says Nagarja.
Here are some of their stories.
Anne Mills — Archives and Records Management
Job Title: Records Manager and History Officer
Education: B.A. in History from Baldwin-Wallace College; Master’s of Library Science from the University of Maryland at College Park.
NASA Center: Glenn Research Center
Mills was 16 years old when she scored a summer internship in NASA's Procurement Division. Seven year later, after pursing a graduate degree in library science, Mills landed a full-time job in archives and records management at the space agency's research center in Cleveland, OH, where she "ensures that all documentation created at the center is organized, accessed, stored, and dispositioned in a way that meets federal and state regulations, NASA regulations, and quality standards."
Source: Women@NASA
Jennifer Cole — Aerospace Engineer
Job Title: Chief of the Aerodynamics and Propulsion Branch
NASA Center: Dryden Flight Research Center
As a young girl growing up near Willow Grove Naval Station outside of Philadelphia, Penn., Cole was by fascinated by "anything that flew." She dreamed of flying in the Navy, but was held back by vision problems. The self-confessed "nerd" began working at NASA as a student intern and is now living out her childhood passion as an aerospace engineer.
Source: Women@NASA
Ginger Kerrick — Flight Director
Job Title: Flight Director, Mission Control Center
Education: Masters in Physics from Texas Tech
NASA Center: Johnson Space Center
When Kerrick's childhood dream of becoming an astronaut didn't pan out due to health issues, she sought out the next best thing: teaching astronauts. The Texas-native began her career at NASA in 1994 as a Life Support Systems Instructor for The International Space Station. In 2001, Kerrick became the first non-astronaut Capsule Communicator, the liaison between Mission Control and the flight crew. Four years later, she became a Flight Director and so far has support 13 International Space Station and five shuttle missions.
Source: Women@NASA
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