LATINOS IN SCIENCE

Ellen Ochoa is an American engineer, former astronaut and former director of the Johnson Space Center. In 1993, Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. She later served as director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (2013–18) Ochoa studied electrical engineering at Stanford University, earning a master’s degree (1981) and a doctorate (1985). A specialist in the development of optical systems, she worked as a research engineer at Sandia National Laboratories and at the Ames Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She helped create several systems and methods that were awarded patents, including optical systems for the detection of imperfections in a repeating pattern and for the recognition of objects.

Received NASA's highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, and has 6 schools named after her

 Finlay was born in Cuba on December 3, 1833. His father, Edward, a Scottish-born physician, and his mother, Eliza, a native of France, educated him at home and later enrolled him in school in France. Bouts of childhood illness interrupted his schooling, but he was able to enroll in the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where he earned his medical degree on March 10, 1855. Eschewing the chance for a lucrative practice in the States, he returned home to Cuba to begin his career.  Finlay spent much of his free time on scientific investigation, including the study of yellow fever. He was appointed to work with the U.S. National Health Board Yellow Fever Commission when it traveled to Cuba in 1879. The commission found that "the agent capable of transmitting the disease must be in the air." That conclusion and microscopic slides of tissue from yellow fever victims led Finlay to focus on the blood vessels and the biting insect that accesses them.     

 Finlay spent the next 20 years trying to prove his hypothesis, conducting 102 experimental inoculations on human volunteers. But his mosquito theory would not gain acceptance until the dawn of the new century.mosquitoes hatched from his eggs to test the hypothesis that the insects transmitted the disease and after a series of experiments, showed that Finlay had been correct. The head of the board, Walter Reed, noted that "it was Finlay's theory, and he deserves much for having suggested it." William Crawford Gorgas, who later spearheaded a public health campaign that protected the Panama Canal project from the disease, said of Finlay: "His reasoning for selecting the Stegomyia [mosquito] as the bearer of yellow fever is the best piece of logical reasoning that can be found in medicine anywhere."  

Finlay discovered that the disease was carried by mosquitos. Finlay experienced a great deal of resistance whenever he presented his ideas. In fact, in his early years, Finlay was only able to get one person on his side, a Cuban physician named Claudio Delgado.

Finlay was subsequently appointed chief sanitary officer of Cuba, a position he held into his 70s until his retirement in 1909. During that period, his work contributed to a reduction in the country's mortality rate of infantile tetanus. After his death on August 20, 1915, his achievements lived on in Cuba, which produced a flattering biography in 1985, requested by Cuban president Fidel Castro, and with the Finlay Medical Society, an organization of medical professionals.

 He was fluent in French, German, Spanish, and English, and could read Latin.