Mary Ellen Weber

Mary Ellen Weber became the second Purdue woman to be named an astronaut when NASA selected her as part of its 14th astronaut class in 1992. She spent more than 18 days in space on two NASA missions. 

Mary Ellen Weber NASA Bio

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Weber served on STS-70 aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1995, helping to deploy a NASA tracking and data relay satellite and send it into orbit 22,000 miles above the equator. She also conducted biotechnology experiments with colon cancer tissues and later became a NASA biotechnology spokesperson. 

In 2000, Weber served aboard space shuttle Atlantis on STS-101, the third shuttle mission devoted to International Space Station construction. The crew conducted critical repair and installation work at the space station and boosted it to a safe orbit. 

Just 32 years old when she first traveled to space, Weber ranks among the youngest astronauts in NASA history. 

During her time as a Purdue undergraduate student, Weber was a chemical engineering intern at Ohio Edison, Delco Electronics and 3M. After college, she worked at Texas Instruments, researching new techniques in microelectronics manufacturing. Texas Instruments assigned her to SEMATECH, a U.S. semiconductor manufacturing consortium, and to Applied Materials and Technology to develop a world-class, high-density plasma reactor, which went into production in 1993.