Ellen Ochoa (NASA) - Leadership Lessons from Space

Ellen Ochoa (NASA) - Leadership Lessons from Space

From Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL) by Stanford eCorner

May 20, 2026 · 50 min · Season 27 · Episode 6

About this episode

Ellen Ochoa shares leadership lessons learned from her experiences in space and her career at NASA.

Ellen Ochoa is the first Hispanic woman astronaut to go into space, serving on four space shuttle missions. She served from 2013 to 2018 as the first Hispanic director and the second female director of Johnson Space Center. She earned her MS in electrical engineering and her PhD in electrical engineering with a focus in optical information processing from Stanford. In this conversation with Adjunct Lecturer Emily Ma, Ochoa shares insights she learned in space and on Earth about exploration, resilience, purpose, and teamwork. Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders is produced by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at the Stanford School of Engineering, and published on eCorner by STVP. STVP empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to become global citizens who create and scale responsible innovations. CONNECT WITH US YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ecorner    X: https://x.com/ECorner    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stanfordtechnologyventuresprogram/    Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/stanfordstvp.bsky.social   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StanfordTechnologyVenturesProgram   Instagram…

People in this episode

Host: Emily Ma

Guest: Ellen Ochoa

Topics covered

  • leadership
  • space exploration
  • resilience
  • teamwork
  • entrepreneurship

Keywords

  • Ellen Ochoa
  • NASA
  • leadership
  • space shuttle
  • resilience
  • teamwork
  • entrepreneurship

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NASA, Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Stanford School of Engineering

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