“There were so few stories about women scientists. Stofan became interested in science early on, but she struggled with what path to follow. “I loved NASA, but I didn’t think I’d ever work there because everyone looked like my dad,” she says. Her father, a rocket engineer, worked on their early development in the space program, and she and her family would travel from their home in Ohio to Florida to witness firsthand the magic of space and what men could do.
To be fair, not many kids get to see folks like Sagan up close or witness a launch in person-one of many since her first at age 4. “I just thought: That’s what I’m going to do,” says the Fauquier County mother of three, who was appointed to the role in 2018. She’d just seen Carl Sagan speak during a NASA event for the launch of the first two Viking landers to Mars. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, is the exception. Ellen Stofan, the first female director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and Steven F. Not many 14-year-olds can tell you what they want to do for the rest of their lives, nor do they home in on something as specific as planetary geology.
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