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Christopher J. Scolese Maniac Lecture

Personal Photograph

Christopher J. Scolese is the director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, a position he assumed in March 2012. He began his career with NASA in 1987 and has served in numerous leadership roles. He became the Associate Administrator, one of the agency’s highest ranking civil servant positions at NASA Headquarters (2008-2012), which made him responsible for the oversight and integration of NASA’s programmatic and technical efforts to ensure the successful accomplishment of the agency’s overall mission. For a brief period, January-July 2009, Scolese served as NASA’s acting administrator, where he was responsible for leading the development, design, and implementation of the nation’s civil space program. Scolese also served as NASA’s Chief Engineer (2005-2007), Deputy Director of the Goddard Space Flight Center (2004-2005), Deputy Associate Administrator in the Office of Space Science (2001-2004), Earth Science Program Manager/Deputy Director Flight Projects (1999-2001), Project Manager for EOS-1 later Terra spacecraft (1992-1998) and System Engineer various projects and EOS (1987-1992). Before joining NASA, he worked at General Research Corporation of McLean as a senior analyst (1986-1987) and US Navy Officer (Lt.)/Engineer Naval Reactors (1977-1986), where he was selected by Admiral Hyman Rickover to serve at Naval Reactors and was associated with the development of instrumentation, instrument systems, and multi-processor systems for the U.S. Navy and the Department of Energy while working for Naval Sea Systems Command. Scolese is the recipient of numerous honors including the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive, the NASA Distinguished Leadership Medal; Goddard Out-standing Leadership, two NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) National Capital Section Young Engineer/Scientist of the Year award. He was recognized as one of the outstanding young men in America in 1986, was a member of college honor societies including Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi, and was recipient of the 1973 Calspan Aeronautics award. He is a Fellow of the AIAA and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He also served as a member of the AIAA Astrodynamics Technical Committee and chaired the National Capitol Section Guidance Navigation and Control Technical Committee. Scolese, received a BS in electrical engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1978, MS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) at George Washington University (GW) in 1982 and PhD (System Engineering) also at GW in 2016 . He received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Buffalo in 2015.