Jonathan B. Ransom

Jonathan Ransom currently serves as the Deputy Director for NASA Langley’s Engineering Directorate where he leads the directorate in operations and working to set strategic direction specifically managing the directorate budget, overseeing workforce hiring and employee development, and sustaining systems engineering capabilities at the center.

Previously, Jonathan served as the deputy director for Structures and Materials in the Research Directorate since November 2019. In this role, he oversaw Langley’s structures and materials research that innovates new materials and structural concepts enabling future aviation and space exploration.

Prior to his appointment to the senior executive service, Jonathan served as the associate director for Structures and Materials and the chief engineer for Structures and Materials in the Research Directorate Office. In early 2019, he briefly stepped away from the associate director position to accept a detail to the Office of Human Capital Management where he led the center’s input to the agency Strategic Workforce Planning initiative. Furthermore, he held branch head roles for multiple branches including the Analytical and Computational Methods Branch and the Durability, Damage Tolerance and Reliability Branch. In addition to serving as branch head, in 2004, he served on a detail assignment as the associate director for the Structures and Materials Competency. Jonathan is recognized for his research in computational structural mechanics, damage mechanics, finite element methods development, and high-performance computing methods to enable multi-disciplinary design and analysis of advanced materials and structures.

Jonathan received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Virginia State University in 1983. He earned a master’s degree in engineering mechanics in 1989 and a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering in 2001, both from Old Dominion University.