Clara Wright

Clara Wright is the acting chief of the Laboratories, Development, and Testing Division within the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In a position she’s held since March 2025, Wright oversees a team of over 300 highly experienced engineers, scientists, and technicians who perform testing, materials analysis, prototyping, research, and processing for launch and flight programs at NASA Kennedy.

Experience

Wright has nearly two decades of experience working as a NASA engineer. Prior to her current role, she became the deputy division chief in March 2021 where she strategized testing, laboratory, and engineering capabilities within the division. Wright managed state-of-the art laboratories, equipment, and facilities and led a team of experts in their fields providing excellent technical solutions to complex and critical problems for NASA programs at the Kennedy Space Center.

Before her promotion to deputy division chief, Wright was named the NASA Materials and Processes Subsystem Manager for the Boeing Starliner spacecraft from August 2005 to August 2019 within the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. In that role, she led a team of NASA engineers performing in-depth technical reviews of spacecraft systems resulting in human-rating of Boeing’s Starliner with the end goal of certifying the spacecraft for flights to the International Space Station.

Wright began her career at NASA in the Failure Analysis and Materials Evaluation Branch, leading materials failure analysis investigations for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. Post-shuttle, she transitioned to work in engineering teams developing plant payloads and led research and technology development projects on novel self-repairing metal matrix composites.

Wright has authored two book chapters on failure analysis, published or co-published 11 journal articles, and has several patents in self-repairing metal matrix composites. She also has participated in more than 80 outreach events for NASA, reaching more than 5,000 students with her presentations, which mostly focused on materials engineering. She has served in various agencywide teams, representing NASA Kennedy and the materials engineering discipline.

Education

Wright started at NASA Kennedy after receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 2002 and a Master of Science degree from the Pennsylvania State University in University Park in 2005, both in materials science and engineering with a specialty in metals.

Awards

Wright has received numerous awards, including several Space Flight Awareness awards, NASA’s Silver Dollar Award, NASA’s Silver Achievement Medal, certificates of commendation, NASA Group Achievement awards, Kennedy Space Center Mentor of the Year, and the University of Florida Department of Materials Science and Engineering Outstanding Young Alum Award.

Biography created May 2025