Science and Technology Partnership Open Forum on In-Space Assembly NASA Headquarters Nov. 6, 2018 Speaker Biographies

Dr. Douglas Terrier, Chief Technologist, NASA

Dr. Douglas Terrier serves as NASA’s chief technologist and is the senior leader of the Office of the Chief Technologist. In this role, Terrier is the agency's principal advisor and advocate on NASA technology policy and programs, helping plot the strategic direction of the agency's space technology program.

Terrier is responsible for the operation, management and programs within the Office of the Chief Technologist. The office serves as the NASA administrator’s principal advisor and advocate on matters concerning agency- wide technology policy. Terrier directs the work of the strategic integration and innovation teams, coordinating and tracking technology investments across the agency, working to infuse technologies into future NASA missions and facilitating agency technology governance. He also is responsible for coordination and integration of research and development planning, policies and programs with other NASA directorates, offices, centers and other government agencies, industry and academia. In addition, Terrier conducts advocacy activities with technology partners in industry, academia, the public, customers and stakeholders.

Dr. Michele L.D. Gaudreault, Technical Director, Office of the Chief Scientist, Air Force Space Command

Dr. Michele Gaudreault is the technical director of the Office of the Chief Scientist for the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She conducts scientific analysis and facilitates basic, applied and advanced research and development needed for future systems. She also supports the Chief Scientist Joel Mozer in his role as science and technology advisor for the command and maintains technical interfaces with space, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, cyber agencies and the scientific community.

Dr. Gaudreault has 35 years of government service, starting with a summer internship at the Air Force Test Pilot School. She was a NASA test director during the construction and acceptance testing of the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis and the modification of the orbiter Columbia, and has held many other positions including shuttle controls engineer, ground systems engineer, vibrations branch chief, assistant professor at the US Air Force Academy and Air Force Institute of Technology, and chief scientist of the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development. She is also an adjunct professor for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where she primarily teaches aerospace courses.

Dr. Wendell Keith Belvin, Principal Technologist, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA, Langley Research Center

Dr. Wendell Belvin is an internationally recognized expert in structural design and analysis. He serves as principal technologist in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate for structures, materials and nanotechnology at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In his role, Belvin provides strategic direction for research and development in the areas of large space systems, composite structures and advanced structural materials. With over 40 years of experience at NASA, he serves as the agency’s technical fellow for advanced structural systems.

Belvin is also an advocate of modular space systems design and supports development of in-space assembly, in-space manufacturing and in-space servicing capabilities. Prior to his current assignment he served as chief technologist at Langley. He has numerous awards, including NASA’s Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal and Outstanding Leadership Medal.

Dr. Harley Thronson, Astrophysics Concepts, NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center

Dr. Harley Thronson serves as senior scientist for Advanced Astrophysics Mission Concepts at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Previously, he worked at NASA Headquarters in Washington, where he served as the program scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope, among others. He was the first astrobiology program scientist and is co-chair of the weekly Future In-Space Operations (FISO) seminars.

For the past decade, he has chaired the planning team for the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium. In 2013, he co-founded the annual “Achieving, Affording, and Sustaining Human Exploration of Mars” community workshops. He has published more than 120 research papers and edited 11 books. He is recipient of the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal and the Exceptional Achievement Medal.

As a member of the Universities for Research in Astronomy’s Hubble Space Telescope and Beyond Committee, he shared the American Astronautical Society’s Carl Sagan Award for group achievement. Dr. Thronson received his doctorate in astrophysics in 1978 from the University of Chicago and has served as a faculty member and on the senior staff of the Universities of Arizona and Wyoming, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.

Joe Parrish, Program Manager, Tactical Technology Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Mr. Joseph Parrish joined the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in April 2018 as a program manager in the Tactical Technology Office. His focus areas include spaceflight hardware development, robotic systems and on-orbit satellite servicing. Parrish currently serves as the program manager for the Robotic Servicing of Geostationary Satellites (RSGS) program.

Prior to joining DARPA, Parrish was the deputy manager of the Mars Program Formulation Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where he most recently led the development of the Rendezvous and Orbiting Sample Capture System (ROCS) for the Mars Sample Return mission. While on assignment from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to NASA, Parrish also served as the agency’s deputy chief technologist and manager of the Early Stage Innovation Division in the Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA Headquarters. Prior to joining NASA, Parrish held positions as the vice president of research and development at Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation and the president of Payload Systems Incorporated.

Parrish holds a bachelor of science and master of science degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bernard Kelm, RSGS Deputy Program Manager, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

Mr. Bernie Kelm is an aerospace engineer and program manager at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Naval Center for Space Technology. For the past 15 years, under Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funding, Kelm has focused on developing a satellite servicing capability for space vehicles not originally designed to be serviced. DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program directly benefits from this extended period of research, development, analysis, systems engineering and testing at NRL.

Kelm is part of the NRL leadership team on RSGS, serving as the deputy program manager for NRL’s development of the robotic servicing payload. He is one of only two engineers that have been on the effort continuously since its inception and has performed extensive evaluation of servicing for U.S. government satellites. He is also heavily involved in NRL’s efforts to continue to lead innovative technology development for future work in the area. Kelm earned a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland in 1991 and has worked at NRL since then.

Michael E. Mook, Branch Head, Spacecraft Control Systems, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

Mr. Michael Mook is Branch Head of the Spacecraft Control Systems at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where he has a demonstrated history of successful projects in satellite and research and development areas. He has been with the NRL for most of the last 33 years, leaving for a brief period to work for Orbital Inc. (now NGIS).

He started his career as a control systems engineer working on a prolate, spinning upper stage, magnetics and cold gas controlled small satellite. In this position he learned skills in leadership, management, design, fabrication, procurement, test, launch and operation that led to further successful endeavors, including WindSat mechanical systems lead, MITEx bus lead and DAWN program director while at Orbital Inc.

For the last 10 years, he has led the NRL Spacecraft Control Systems branch. The branch is responsible for conceiving, developing, delivering and operating novel spacecraft attitude control systems, propulsion systems, space robotics and orbital dynamics products supporting national space activities. The branch also leads NRL’s satellite servicing and in-space assembly research and development.

Dr. Phillip Williams, Science and Technology (S&T) Partnership Forum, In-Space Assembly Analysis Team, NASA, Langley Research Center

Dr. Phillip Williams is the team lead for the Science and Technology (S&T) Partnership Forum’s in-space assembly (iSA) facilitation and analysis team under the direction of NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist. He is an aerospace engineer in the Space Mission Analysis Branch in the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and currently supports strategic integration, analysis, functional capability and technology assessment for projects within the agency’s Human Exploration and Operations Directorate and Office of the Chief Technologist. Williams entered federal civil service as a research physicist with the Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch in the Research Directorate at Langley. His research accomplishments include three patents, five invention disclosures, over 20 technical publications, an invited book chapter, over 40 contributed scientific presentations at national and international conferences and over five invited lectures. Williams earned a bachelor of science in physics from the College of William and Mary and master of science and a doctorate in physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Dale Arney, Science and Technology (S&T) Partnership Forum, In-Space Assembly Analysis Team, NASA, Langley Research Center

Dr. Dale Arney is an aerospace engineer in the Space Mission Analysis Branch at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, with expertise in space system architecting, systems analysis and technology assessment. He leads studies to assess capability needs for NASA’s plans for human exploration and to analyze alternatives for human exploration.

Before starting at NASA, Arney was a research engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, analyzing mission concepts for lunar, near-Earth asteroid and Mars exploration missions. Arney received his doctorate in aerospace engineering in 2012, master of science in 2008 and bachelor of science in 2006, all from Georgia Tech.

Sharon Jefferies, Science and Technology (S&T) Partnership Forum, In-Space Assembly Analysis Team, NASA, Langley Research Center

Ms. Sharon Jefferies is an aerospace engineer in the Space Mission Analysis Branch at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. She has worked extensively with mission element and architecture concept development and campaign integration and assessment, including coordinating the efforts of multiple teams to facilitate development of a consistent and integrated architecture.

Jefferies is currently a member of the Science and Technology (S&T) Partnership Forum’s in-space assembly analysis team. She is also the deputy for cross-program integration for NASA’s Gateway program. Jefferies previously led architecture integration activities for NASA’s Evolvable Mars Campaign. In 2017, she led a study to investigate if and how in-space assembly can be incorporated into human exploration to Mars mission architectures to address the challenges with human-class missions to Mars.

Since joining NASA in 2006, Jefferies has supported systems concept and mission designs for lunar, near-Earth asteroid and Mars mission studies under the human spaceflight architecture team and for NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission. Her background is in crew mobility and robotic systems concept development, architecture integration, mission concept-of-operations development and capability needs assessment.

Dr. Erica Rodgers, Lead, Science and Technology (S&T) Partnership Forum, Office of the Chief Technologist, NASA Headquarters

Dr. Erica Rodgers leads the Science and Technology (S&T) Partnership Forum within NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist. In her position, Rodgers performs strategic analysis to find enterprise synergistic technology solutions to benefit the nation through interagency collaborations. She previously served as an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where she performed systems analysis of human spaceflight exploration architectures.

Prior to joining NASA in 2014, Rodgers taught astronomy and astrophysics at several colleges and universities, including Benedictine College, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Arizona State University and Estrella Mountain Community College. She also has worked as a systems engineer at Spectrum Astro in Gilbert, Arizona; a satellite operations shift manager at a NOAA tracking station in Fairbanks, Alaska; and as a research scientist for the Space Science Institute headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

She has 10 years of experience in designing and fabricating satellite and rocket instrumentation and 15 years of combined research experience in space physics and astrophysics. Rodgers received her bachelor of science and master of science in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her doctorate in space physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.