Anna Lee Fisher

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Anna Lee Fisher (née Tingle) (born August 24, 1949) is an American chemist, emergency physician, and a former NASA astronaut.

In 1984, she became the first mother in space after being married to fellow astronaut Bill Fisher and the mother of two children.

She has worked on three main programs, including the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and the Orion project.

Early life

Anna Lee Sims was born in Albany, New York, on August 24, 1949. Elfriede's mother, Elfriede, was born in Germany in 1918 but she had emigrated to the United States when she was sixteen years old. She had returned to Germany shortly before World War II to care for her grandmother, but she was unable to return to the US due to the war, when she had served in the German military as a Morse code operator. Riley F. Tingle met her in Berlin after the war while serving in Berlin for the US Army. The two had returned to the United States, where they were born in April 1949. Anna grew up as an Army brat over the years as a family migrated around the United States and Germany frequently.

Sims listened to the radio broadcast of Alan Shepard becoming the first American astronaut on the moon in the seventh grade at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, while her teacher had invited her to be an astronaut. All the Mercury Seven astronauts were test pilots at the time, but she decided that space stations would be needed by the time she was old enough. She did volunteer work at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California, but she did not abandon the dream of flying in space when she was in high school. In 1967, she graduated from San Pedro High School.

Sims enrolled in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and started studying math. She decided that the career prospects were weak and moved to chemistry, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 1971. She spent a year in graduate school, conducting X-ray crystallographic experiments of metallocarboranes, and a single article in Inorganic Chemistry. But she saw others who had earned PhDs after six years of study, but decided against seeking jobs instead. She then enrolled in UCLA School of Medicine, where she earned her Doctor of Medicine degree in 1976. Medicine was considered a "non-traditional" career for women at the time, and there were just 15 women in the medical school class of 150. In 1977, she completed her internship at Harbor General Hospital. Bill Fisher, a fellow intern a year before she came to Harbor General, was a year ahead of her. He was a military brat, the son of a United States Air Force colonel, and he also wanted to fly in space for a day. She wished to specialize in emergency medicine and worked in several hospitals in the Los Angeles area, working eight 24-hour shifts per month.

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Awards and honors

• National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellowship (1970, 1971)
• NASA Space Flight Medal (1984)
• NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1988, 1998)
• Lloyd's of London Silver Medal for Meritorious Salvage Operations (1985)
• Mother of the Year Award (1985)
• UCLA Professional Achievement Award (1986)
• UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry Alumni Award (2012)