Anousheh Ansari

Anousheh Ansari
Ansari in her spacesuit
Born	Anousheh Raissyan September 12, 1966 (1966-09-12) (age 50) Mashhad, Iran
Residence	Plano, Texas
Nationality	Iranian, American
Citizenship	dual Iranian-American
Education	Electrical engineering and computer science
Alma mater	George Mason University George Washington University
Occupation	Businessperson
Spouse(s)	Hamid Ansari (m. 1991)
Relatives	Amir Ansari (Brother-in-law)

Anousheh Ansari (Persian: انوشه انصاری‎‎; née Raissyan; born September 12, 1966, in Mashhad, Iran) is an Iranian-American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian in space. Ansari was the fourth overall self-funded space traveler, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010.

Ansari was born in Mashhad, Iran. She and her parents moved to Tehran shortly afterward. Ansari is Muslim, she witnessed the Iranian Revolution in 1979. She immigrated to the United States in 1984 as a teenager. Apart from her native Persian, she is fluent in English and French, and acquired a working knowledge of Russian for her spaceflight experience.

She received her Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and her master's degree at George Washington University in Washington D.C.