Ex-Astronaut Ride Honored in 1st Off-Campus Speech

Commending the group for its support of science education, former astronaut Sally K. Ride accepted a “Scientist of the Year” award Tuesday from a San Diego group that funds scholarships to graduate students.

It was Ride’s first off-campus speaking engagement since joining the UC San Diego faculty as director of the California Space Institute last fall. It also was the beginning of a series of public speeches over the next several months, including one at 7 p.m. today at Grossmont Hospital.

For her first audience, Ride chose a group called Achievement Rewards for College Scientists, which has given $165,000 over the past three years to San Diego students in science and technical fields.

Ride told the gathering of 430 people that, as director of the space institute, which is based at UCSD, she will be working to interest student scientists in learning more about Earth from space.

Such an effort is needed not only to recruit scientists to address global environmental issues, but also to remedy an expected shortage of people trained in science and technical fields over the next few decades, she said.

Ending the white male domination of science is an integral part of those efforts, she added.

“If we’re going to significantly increase the number of people in this country in science and engineering, we have to increase the number of women and minorities,” Ride said. “The statistics, even though people have been working on this problem for quite a while, are still appalling.”

To begin addressing these educational issues, Cal Space this year will sponsor a one-week summer school for graduate students in cooperation with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, Ride said.

JPL will also begin offering internships and summer jobs this year to students through Cal Space, she said. Ride said she hopes the Ames Research Center near San Jose and other UC campuses can eventually become involved.

Ride’s speech at tonight is at Grossmont Hospital’s Briar Patch Auditorium, 9000 Wakarusa St., La Mesa. The speech, targeted at women and with the topic of “Achieving Your Goals,” is free and open to the public.