Pam Underwood

Pam Underwood is the Deputy Director of the Spaceport Integration and Services (SI) organization at the NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. She is responsible for working with the Director to ensure safe, efficient, and effective infrastructure and support services for NASA KSC, its workforce, and its government and commercial customers.

As the SI Deputy Director, Underwood assists the Director with executing the organization’s mission to lead the overall planning, execution and integration of facilities and services needed to support the diverse launch, ground-based testing, and processing activities at KSC.  This includes programs and projects for NASA, other government agencies, and commercial partners resident on Kennedy Space Center and in NASA facilities on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.  

Experience

Prior to her position with NASA, Underwood spent nearly 19 years with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation, serving most recently as the Director of the Office of Spaceports. In this role, she developed and implemented policies that encouraged infrastructure improvements at both domestic and international spaceports, promoted U.S. spaceports within the Department of Transportation, oversaw all FAA commercial space transportation international engagements and cooperative licensing agreements, and fostered initiatives to enhance the nation’s competitiveness in commercial space transportation infrastructure, supporting both the federal government and the commercial space transportation industry.

After serving two years as deputy manager, Underwood served as manager of the Operations Integration Division within the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation from 2016 to 2020, supervising staff from across the country, serving as the primary point of contact between the FAA and the commercial space transportation industry, and managing commercial and government partnerships with organizations including NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). She served as program manager for civil space partnerships and defined agency roles and responsibilities, documented formal agreements and procedures, and managed the execution of the partnership agreements and interagency development for licensing human space flight missions. She also managed the relationship between the FAA and the commercial providers supporting NASA in the execution of missions for cargo and crew transportation to and from the ISS and established and maintained the interagency partnership for commercial spaceflight between the FAA and NASA to include suborbital and orbital technology demonstration space flight missions, as well as orbital transportation of cargo and crew to the ISS. Underwood began her career with the FAA as an aerospace engineer in 2006.

Education

Underwood received a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and a Master of Science in aerospace engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Awards

Underwood received several awards during her time with the FAA, include the FAA STEM Outreach Award, FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation Employee of the Year, and multiple FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation Team Awards for accomplishments supporting the commercial space transportation industry. She also received the NASA Space Flight Awareness Management Award and NASA Team Award.

Biography last updated March 2025