Sally Ride attended Stanford University where she received a doctorate degree in Physics in 1978. One of over 8,000 people to answer an advertisement in a newspaper seeking applicants for the space program, Ride joined NASA in 1978. For the second and third Space Shuttle flights, Sally served as the ground-based Capsule Communicator. An American physicist and NASA astronaut, Dr. Ride became the first American woman and youngest American (at the time) to enter space on June 18, 1983, as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7. Her second space flight was in 1984, also on board the Challenger. She has cumulatively spent more than 343 hours in space. After the tragic space shuttle Challenger disaster, Dr. Ride served as a member of the Presidential Commission investigating the accident. She later served on the accident investigation board for the space shuttle Columbia tragedy, the only person to serve on both boards. In 1987, Ride left to work at Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego and Director of the California Space Institute. Currently on leave from the university, she is President and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she founded in 2001, which creates entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls. She has also written numerous science books for children. Dr. Ride has been a member of many prestigious organizations including the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. She has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall, and has received numerous honors and awards, including the NASA Space Flight Medal.