Dr. Azita Valinia

In June 2024, Dr. Azita Valinia was named the Senior Technical Integration Leader in the NASA Office of Chief Engineer. In this role, she leads the development and execution of initiatives that are focused on the strategic integration of technical programs, enabling mission success across a broad portfolio.

Dr. Valinia is a well-versed interdisciplinary scientist, strategist, and senior executive with over 20 years of experience in NASA program management spanning science, technology, engineering, and mission formulation. She is known as a “bridge maker” between the diverse science, engineering, and technology communities.

Since joining NASA in 2000, Azita has served in various leadership roles at NASA. These include Chief Scientist of the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), leading several technical interdisciplinary assessments for the Agency developing strategies and recommendations designed to help enable NASA’s Moon to Mars objectives, while ensuring safe human expeditions beyond low Earth orbit. She served as the Deputy Director of the NASA Office of JPL Management and Oversight at the Agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where she led oversight of NASA’s largest contract, the Caltech/JPL Federally Funded Research & Development Center (FFRDC) on behalf of NASA Headquarters. Earlier in her career, she served as the Deputy Director of the Astrophysics Flight Projects Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), overseeing a portfolio of over 20 space science flight missions in operation including the Hubble Space Telescope. As the Associate Director for R&D at the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at GSFC, she led the strategic development and implementation of the organization’s science and technology development portfolio as well as future advanced mission concept formulations. She led the technical assessment teams that laid out NASA’s decadal Earth science technology investment strategy (in 2006 and 2016). Both strategies informed the deliberations and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences “Earth science decadal surveys committees” (in 2007 and 2017). Together with the engineering directorate leadership at GSFC, she created two high-impact interdisciplinary programs, the Science-Engineering Collaboration Program, and the Research Engineering Program, fostering strong collaborations between the science and engineering directorates at GSFC. She served on the NASA Headquarters Task Force that recommended and implemented the Science Innovation Fund program at NASA.

Azita earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the University of Houston and a PhD in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin. She has authored and/or co-authored over 60 articles in technical journals encompassing topics in astrophysics, Earth, and planetary sciences research as well as mission concept formulation, technology development, engineering management, and human space flight. She is the recipient of NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal, and NASA’s Silver Snoopy Award for her outstanding contributions related to human space flight safety. She is certified by the NASA Federal Acquisition Certification for Program/Project Managers (NASA FAC-P/PM) at the senior expert level, as well as serves as chair of multiple NASA Standing Review Boards and holds a patent in standardized SmallSat platforms.

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