Dr. Sally K. Ride, a former NASA Astronaut and the first American woman in space, is the co-founder and CEO of Imaginary Lines, Inc., a company dedicated to encouraging more young girls of middle school age to pursue math and science through programs and products designed to meet their specific interests and needs. She is also the Ingrid and Joseph Hibben Professor of Space Science at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Ride was raised in Los Angeles, California and attended Stanford University where she received her B.S. in Physics and B.A in English in 1973, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics in 1975 and 1978, respectively.
     In 1978, Dr. Ride was selected for NASA's astronaut corps. She was involved in the design and testing of the Space Shuttle's robot arm, served as capsule communicator in NASA's Mission Control, and was a member of the support crew for the second and third Shuttle flights. Her first spaceflight was aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983; her second was also aboard Challenger, in 1984. During those flights, she deployed communications satellites, operated the robot arm, and conducted experiments in materials, pharmaceuticals, and Earth remote-sensing.
     Training for her third spaceflight was interrupted by the Space Shuttle Challenger accident. Dr. Ride served as a member of the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, and chaired its subcommittee on Operations. She then served as NASA's first director of Strategic Planning, initiating strategic planning at NASA and producing a report on the future of the space program entitled "Leadership and America's Future in Space." She also created, and was the first Director of, NASA's Office of Exploration.

     Dr. Ride spent two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, where she worked on a variety of national security issues. In 1989, she became Director of the University of California's California Space Institute, and joined the faculty at UCSD as a Professor of Physics. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and her research interests include novel types of lasers, the interaction of high-energy electrons with radiation, and space plasmas.
     In 1999, Dr. Ride became President of the Internet/Media company, Space.com. She left Space.com in 2000 to found her own company, Imaginary Lines. Long an advocate for improved science education, Dr Ride has written four science books for children: To Space and Back; Voyager; The Third Planet, and The Mystery of Mars. She also initiated and directs a large internet-based NASA education project that enables middle school students to take digital pictures of the Earth from a camera on board the Space Shuttle.