According to the National Science Foundation, despite marginal gains in recent years, women make up less than a third of all workers in science and engineering occupations. In a an article published in NBC News, Dr. Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina to go into space, shared that one of the reasons holding back women is the lack of information about those fields.

Serving for 30 years at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Ochoa has defied many notions about being a woman of science. She worked as a research engineer and later on served as the Director of the Johnson Space Center, being the second female and first Hispanic Director in the center's history. She joined four space missions and logged nearly 1,000 hours in orbit over the course.

"Curiosity is probably one of the most important characteristics that people have who go into science, and engineering is about solving problems and creativity," Ochoa said. "I think those are things that really appeal to girls, but it's not necessarily spoken of that way when people talk about science and engineering."

Growing up, Ochoa didn't know any scientists or engineers up and took only the high school biology class that was required to graduate.

"I opted out of chemistry and physics [in high school] because I just thought I wasn't interested and I didn't know very much about what that career even looked like," she said.

Before Ochoa joined NASA, she worked as a researcher at the Department of Energy, the only woman out of some 60 researches. She was only able to join other women in the field when she worked at NASA. Even at Stanford, the number of women in her graduate program in the electrical engineering department was hardly better.

"That caught my eye right at the beginning," Ochoa said. "What you didn't see at that time at NASA, though, was really women in leadership positions. You could sort of tell NASA had been working on recruiting a more diverse workforce, but they hadn't really yet percolated into the leadership positions." She considered it "a great advancement" over her 30-year career.

"[But] we're not where we need to be yet," Ochoa said. "Pretty much any place in science and engineering, getting a more diverse workforce is something that's still a really high priority."

She urged women and people of color to participate in organizations like the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers.

"I think it's helpful especially when you're in college to get hooked up with a chapter," Ochoa said, "because it helps you feel a little bit less alone and gives you that opportunity to meet people like yourself and kind of trade stories and tips."

Meanwhile, the veteran astronaut remarked that NASA's plans of coming up with a new, enhanced-mobility spacesuits in a broad range of astronaut sizes is "a great milestone."

In a report published by The Verge, Amy Ross, a spacesuit designer at NASA, noted during the suit's demonstration earlier this fall that the size limitations on space suit restrict who can go on spacewalks on the International Space Station.

"We can fit anywhere from the first percentile female to the 99th percentile male," she added.

The said spacesuit will be ready for use by 2024 for an all-female spacewalk that was postponed last March due to issues on spacesuit sizes and availability.