Anna Lee Fisher

Anna Lee Fisher was born Anna Lee Tingle in New York City on August 24, 1949, and grew up moving frequently as a military dependent before considering San Pedro, California, her hometown where she graduated from San Pedro High School. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), switching from mathematics to chemistry and earning a B.S. in chemistry in 1971, then entered UCLA School of Medicine and received her M.D. in 1976 after completing clinical training including an internship at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California. Following medical training, Fisher worked in emergency medicine in the Los Angeles area and then applied to NASA’s astronaut program; she was selected as part of NASA’s 1978 astronaut class, the first group to include female astronaut candidates, and completed astronaut training in 1979 to become eligible as a mission specialist. She flew on STS-51-A (Discovery) in November 1984, where she operated the Remote Manipulator System and participated in the shuttle program’s first satellite-retrieval (salvage) mission, making her the first mother to go into space. After her flight, Fisher served in numerous leadership and technical roles within the Astronaut Office and at NASA, including serving as CAPCOM for early shuttle missions, working on crew procedures, participating on the astronaut selection board, and serving as Chief of the Space Station Branch during the early build phase of the ISS (1996–2002). She took an extended leave from NASA from 1989–1995 to raise her daughters and then returned to contribute to ISS development, Orion program work, and organizational resilience efforts following the Columbia accident investigations and other program challenges. In later years Fisher transitioned to roles outside NASA that draw on her operational, medical, and leadership experience: she has taught and consulted on human performance and resilience (for example at USC Viterbi) and served as an advisor to firms and organizations where her astronaut and medical background inform training, risk, and organizational development work. She retired from NASA in 2017 but has continued to make public appearances, deliver talks, and advise organizations on leadership, resilience, and human systems in high-risk environments.