France A. Córdova

France A. Córdova (born August 5, 1947, Paris, France) is a French-born American astrophysicist who served in multiple prominent leadership positions at scientific institutions, most notably as director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2014 to 2020. In the field of astrophysics, Córdova is internationally recognized, particularly for her multiwavelength observations of X-ray and gamma ray emissions in space and her contributions to the development of optical instrumentation to observe space phenomena.

Early life and education

Córdova is the first of 12 children born to Frederick Córdova, a Mexican American graduate of West Point, and his Irish American wife, Joan Francis Córdova (née McGuinness). In 1946 Frederick Córdova took an assignment with the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE), a nonprofit organization that distributed food and clothing across a continent still devastated from World War II. The couple initially lived in Paris, where France was born. The family subsequently moved to other locations in Europe during Córdova’s tenure with CARE before finally returning to the United States in 1953.

France A. Córdova’s early life did not suggest her future career path. While a student at Bishop Amat High School in La Puente, California, she most enjoyed writing, literature, and drama. She matriculated at Stanford University as an English major, and during her junior year she went to Oaxaca, Mexico, where she carried out fieldwork in a Zapotec pueblo and collected Zapotec recipes into a cookbook. A manuscript for a novella she wrote based on her time in Oaxaca, The Women of Santo Domingo, won her an internship at the magazine Mademoiselle. After graduating cum laude from Stanford in 1969, she began working as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times.

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In July 1969, however, the Apollo 11 Moon landing captured Córdova’s imagination and ignited a passion for space that redirected her from a career in writing to one in physics. Córdova returned to school, having been accepted for graduate studies in physics at the California Institute of Technology. She spent part of her graduate career at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where she helped develop and launch rocket payloads. She also studied double star systems using data collected by satellite. She earned a Ph.D. in physics in 1979; the title of her dissertation is “X-ray Observations of Dwarf Novae.”

Rise to NASA

Córdova subsequently joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory, working as a staff scientist in the organization’s earth and space sciences division. By 1988 she was the deputy group leader of the division and pursued research in astronomy and astrophysics. The following year Córdova accepted an offer to chair Pennsylvania State University’s department of astronomy and astrophysics.

Córdova remained at Penn State until 1993, when she was hired to serve as chief scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the very organization that had originally inspired her. In that position she acted as the primary scientific adviser to NASA’s administration and as a liaison between NASA and the greater scientific community. She was the first woman and youngest person to hold the title of chief scientist. For her work Córdova received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1996, the highest honor awarded by NASA.

Later career

In 1997 Córdova returned to academia. Until 2002, she served as a professor of physics and as vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During that time she contributed to the development of an X-ray telescope that was sent into space, and she was honored as a Kilby Laureate (2000), a recognition of the impact of her scientific and educational work on society. From 2002 to 2007 she was chancellor and distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside. In 2007, while at Riverside, she received the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award. That same year Córdova left the University of California system to become president of Purdue University, where she oversaw the creation of its College of Health and Human Sciences and its Global Policy Research Institute. When she left Purdue in 2012, the university honored her by renaming its recreation center after her.

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In 2008, during her tenure at Purdue, Córdova was appointed by U.S. Pres. George W. Bush to the National Science Board. The following year Pres. Barack Obama appointed her to the Smithsonian Institution’s board of regents. In 2012 she became the latter’s chair, a position she would hold until 2014, when she was nominated by Obama and approved by the U.S. Senate to be the 14th director of the NSF. As head of the NSF, she managed a billion-dollar increase in the agency’s budget, cochaired multiple committees of the National Science and Technology Council for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, spoke before the U.S. Congress and multiple intergovernmental organizations, and promoted engineering and mathematics (STEM) education among traditionally underrepresented groups by launching a program named INCLUDES, which other government agencies swiftly joined. Córdova concluded her term in 2020. In 2021 she was named president of the Science Philanthropy Alliance.