Dr. Karen J. Weiland – NESC Academy Biography

Dr. Karen Weiland is a systems engineer at the NASA Glenn Research Center and improves and advances systems engineering capabilities across NASA to meet critical needs for the future. Karen co-led NASA’s highly successful Model-Based Systems Engineering Infusion and Modernization Initiative (MIAMI), which significantly increased MBSE adoption by the workforce and provided results to inform and advance NASA’s Digital Transformation. She adapted and used design, business, and innovation concepts and tools for MIAMI and for a systems engineering strategy team, the Insight, Decisions, and Actions for Systems Engineering Transformation and Revitalization (IDEASTAR) Action Team. Karen and her colleagues have published and presented on MIAMI, IDEASTAR, and innovation to many audiences internal and external to NASA. The US Department of Defense Digital Engineering strategy team and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have sought her expertise. She mentors many individuals and groups on the topics of systems engineering, MBSE, technical and change leadership, and innovation. 

Karen received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She spent the first half of her NASA career as a microgravity combustion diagnostics researcher, and was a project scientist for experiments on the Space Shuttle and the facility scientist for the Combustion Integration Rack on the International Space Station. She has been a lead systems engineer on many projects, including the Spacecraft Fire Safety Demonstration project, for which she and her team received the NASA Systems Engineering Technical Excellence Award, the NASA Program and Project Management Excellence Award, and the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement. Her most recent assignment is as a systems engineer on the Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project. Her personal honors include the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Silver Snoopy, and numerous NASA Group Achievement Awards.