Dr. Ellen Baker is the Director of Project ECHO and Cervical Cancer Prevention in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. 

Dr. Baker earned a doctorate in medicine from Cornell University Medical College and a master of public health degree from the University of Texas School of Public Health.  She trained as an internal medicine physician at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas and joined NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) as a medical officer at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in 1981. 

Dr. Baker was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1984 and is a veteran of three space shuttle missions during the period 1989 through 1995.

Dr. Baker joined MD Anderson in 2014, where she leads tele-mentoring programs to reach providers in rural and underserved communities with the ultimate aim of improving access to cancer prevention services and cancer specialty care in rural, isolated communities worldwide.  Much of Dr. Baker’s work is focused on prevention of cervical cancer in limited resource settings in the US and globally.