One of the first female NASA astronauts to be 2019 college commencement speaker
Anna Lee Fisher, a three-time UCLA graduate, will speak at UCLA’s commencement ceremony June 14. Fisher was part of NASA’s first astronaut class to include women, as well as the first mother in space. (Daily Bruin file photo)
By Julia Shapero
May 15, 2019 7:07 p.m.
One of NASA’s first female astronauts will speak at UCLA’s commencement ceremony June 14.
Anna Lee Fisher, a three-time UCLA graduate, was part of NASA’s first astronaut class to include women, as well as the first mother in space. Fisher joined NASA in 1978 and embarked on a flight on the space shuttle Discovery in 1984 when her daughter was 14 months old.
Fisher was also the chief of the Astronaut Office’s Space Station at NASA, where she helped create the foundation for the International Space Station and served as a lead communicator with the space station in the mission control center.
The UCLA alumna also worked on display development for the Orion spacecraft, a human spacecraft designed for deep-space missions, before she retired in 2017.
Fisher earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from UCLA in 1971, a medical degree in 1976 and a master’s in chemistry in 1987. She will be speaking at both commencement ceremonies at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. in Pauley Pavilion.
