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Peter B. Tran

Technical Area Lead, Mission Critical Software

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Organization: Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley 

Peter B. Tran serves as the Mission Critical Software (MCS) Technical Area Lead (aka Branch Chief) in the Intelligent Systems Division (Code TI) at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Prior to his current position, he served as the Deputy Technical Area Lead for the Collaborative and Assistant Systems (CAS) within the same division. As the MCS Technical Area Lead, he oversees multidisciplinary, collaborative teams conducting Research and Development (R&D) across the full lifecycle mission-critical software solution, from initial requirements definition to deployment of mission-ready operational systems. The MCS technical portfolio includes core competencies in automated software engineering and verification; ground and flight data systems; mission-oriented data infrastructure and architecture; integrated systems health monitoring; semantic technologies; and data-driven decision support tools.  

Tran began his NASA career initially as a federal contractor for various companies before becoming a NASA civil servant in 2007. Prior to NASA, he worked in the private sector as a software engineer, software consultant, software architect, and software engineering manager for several Silicon Valley technology companies. At NASA, he has taken on progressively broader technical and leadership roles and responsibilities across aeronautics, human spaceflight and exploration, space biology, and technology transfer. His early technical contributions included an aviation safety system for tracking remote airport tower sensors and the joint NASA–FAA Performance Data Analysis and Reporting System (PDARS). He later served as the technical lead for the Program/Project Management Tool (PMT), which supports budget planning and management, and for data systems supporting the Constellation Program’s Altair lunar lander. As a project lead, he contributed to the Human Research Program’s Information Technology (IT) Architecture and One Portal data system, as well as GeneLab bioinformatics data systems, now part of NASA’s Open Science Data Repository (OSDR). He currently serves as the project manager for the Agencywide NASA Technology Transfer System (NTTS) supporting the Technology Transfer program. 

Tran has also led successful technology spinoff and commercialization efforts through reimbursable Space Act Agreements. These efforts include licensing the NASA-patented NETMARK schema-less database framework and PMT software to Silicon Valley technology companies and adapting NTTS into the Defense Technology Transfer Information System (DTTIS) for the Air Force Research Laboratory. 

Select Publications & Presentations 

  1. P. Tran: “Program/Project Management Tool (PMT) v4.0 Capabilities”, NASA Ames’ Technology Transfer Webinar, 2021 
  1. P. Tran and T. Okimura: “Building the Next Generation Technology Transfer Information System”, Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Technology Transfer and Transition (T3) Technical Interchange Meeting, 2020 
  1. O. Stotzky, P. Tran, D. Berrios, et al.: “Researcher’s Guide to GeneLab”, 2018  
  1. P. Tran and T. Okimura: “NASA Technology Transfer System” presented to U.S. Federal Lab Consortium, 2017 
  1. P. Tran, M. Skidmore, O. Stotzky, et al.: “GeneLab Data Systems Phase 2: Integrated Search and Federation of Space Biology Experimental Data”, American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR) Conference, 2016 
  1. C. Webster, P. Tran, N. Shi, and I. Smith: “User-Driven Collaboration for NASA Mission Control”, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-45) Proceedings, 2012  
  1. D. Tran, D. Maluf, and P. Tran: “Effective Data Representation and Compression in Ground Data Systems”, IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings, 2008  
  1. D. Maluf and P. Tran, “Managing Unstructured Data with Structured Legacy Systems”, IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings, 2008  
  1. D. Maluf, P. Tran, et al.: “Semi-Structured Data Management in the Enterprise: A Nimble, High-Throughput and Scalable Approach”, International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium (IDEAS), 2005  
  1. P. Tran and D. Maluf: “NETMARK: A Schema-less Extension for Relational Databases for Managing Semi-structured Data Dynamically”, Foundations of Intelligent Systems, 14th International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems (ISMIS) Conference Proceedings, 2003  
  1. P. Tran and D. Maluf: “NETMARK: Adding Hierarchical Object to Relational Databases with ‘Schema-less’ Extensions”, Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA) Advances in Soft Computing Vol. 23; 2003 
  1. D. Maluf, P. Tran, et al.: “XDB-IPG: An Extensible Database Architecture for an Information Grid of Heterogeneous and Distributed Information Resources”, 2003 

Select Awards & Accolades 

  1. 2022 NASA Government Invention of the Year Award for Agencywide NASA Technology Transfer System (NTTS) 
  1. 2020 Agencywide NASA Honor Award for Group Achievement Award for NASA Technology Transfer System (NTTS) 
  1. 2017 Agencywide NASA Honor Award for Outstanding Leadership Medal  
  1. 2012 U.S. Patent Award for “Enhanced Program/Project Management Tool (PMT)” (U.S. Patent No. 8,224,472) 
  1. 2011 NASA Johnson Space Center Director’s Innovation Award for the Mission Control Technologies (MCT) Team 
  1. 2008 NASA Constellation Program’s Superior Accomplishments Award for the Altair Lunar Lander Project 
  1. 2007 NASA Space Act Awards for Outstanding Technical Contributions for Program/Project Management Tool (PMT) and NETMARK Extensible Database (XDB) 
  1. 2005 U.S. Patent Award for “Extensible Database Framework for Management of Unstructured and Semi-Structured Documents (aka NETMARK)” (U.S. Patent No. 6,968,338) 

Contact

peter.b.tran@nasa.gov