It is the nation’s highest civilian honor bestowed by the President of the United States.
US President Joe Biden, Dr. Ellen Ochoa, former center director and astronaut at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Dr. Jane Rigby, principal project scientist for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington.
It is the nation’s highest civilian award, and these two NASA winners were among 19 recipients announced on May 3.
Ochoa was recognized for her leadership at NASA Johnson and being the first Hispanic woman in space (her paternal grandparents were Mexican), and Rigby was recognized for her work leading NASA’s Transformation Space Telescope.
“I am honored that Ellen and Jane have been recognized for their incredible roles in the NASA mission, for sharing the power of science with humanity, and for inspiring the Artemis generation to look at the stars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Among his many accomplishments as a veteran astronaut and leader, Ellen was Johnson’s second director to fly four times in space and log nearly 1,000 hours in orbit. Jane is one of many NASA “wizards” who work every day to make the impossible possible.
“The James Webb Space Telescope represents an outstanding scientific discovery that continues to reveal the secrets of our universe. We applaud Ellen and Jane for their service to NASA and our country,” added Nelson.
Ochoa retired from NASA in 2018 after more than 30 years with the agency. In addition to being an astronaut, he held various positions over the years, including Johnson, the 11th director of NASA, deputy director of the Johnson Center, and director of flight crew operations.
He joined NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, as a research engineer in 1988, and moved to NASA Johnson in 1990 when he was selected as an astronaut. She became the first Hispanic woman in space in 1993 when she served on the nine-day STS-56 mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery. He went into space four times, including STS-66, STS-96, and STS-110. .
Born in California, he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from San Diego State University, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. As a research engineer at Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames Research Center, Ochoa studied optical systems for information processing. He is a co-inventor of three patents and the author of several technical articles.
“Wow, what an unexpected and surprising honor! “I am so grateful to all of my incredible colleagues at NASA who have shared my professional journey with me,” commented Ellen Ochoa upon hearing the news of her Presidential Medal of Honor win.
During his tenure, Ochoa received NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the President’s Distinguished Rank Award for Senior Executives of the Federal Government. He has received numerous awards and is notable for having seven schools named after him.
The second recipient, Rigby, born and raised in Delaware, was honored with the Medal of Freedom for his role in the success of NASA’s Webb mission, the largest and most powerful space telescope to launch on December 25, 2021. His long-standing support of diversity and inclusion in science.
He is an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He provides scientific leadership to Webb, which has inspired the world in its first two years of scientific activity, making pioneering discoveries about the secrets of our universe.
Rigby worked on Webb’s development for several years and later led the characterization of Webb’s scientific performance.
“The Web has become a symbol not only of technological excellence and scientific innovation, but of what humanity can achieve when we all work together,” Rigby said.
Rigby is an active researcher developing new techniques to better understand how galaxies form and form stars over time. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed publications and has been recognized with awards such as the NASA Outstanding Scientific Achievement Medal, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Fred Kavli Prize Plenary Lecture, and Out to Innovate’s 2022 LGBTQ+ Scientist.
