Tiffany N. Titus

Tiffany N. Titus is an operations engineer at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Selected in 2020, she is responsible for overseeing the center’s ground operations planning and execution, maintenance, servicing, and logistics support of the X-59 supersonic research aircraft. She helps ensure NASA Armstrong is ready for the airplane from an operations perspective.

Experience

From 2015 to 2020, Titus was operations engineer for NASA Armstrong’s support aircraft fleet and lead operations engineer for the center’s two King Air aircraft. Titus led the aircraft modifications in support of various NASA aeronautics research, science, and reimbursable projects, including S-MODE (Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment), DopplerScatt (Doppler Scatterometry), AirBOS (Airborne Background Oriented Schlieren Imaging) 4, and AirSWOT (Airborne Surface Water and Ocean Topography). At the same time, she was operations engineer for the TG-14 aircraft, responsible for bringing the aircraft back into service and supporting modifications in support of projects like SonicBAT (Sonic Booms in Atmospheric Turbulence) and UAS-NAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System). She has also supported the F-18, G-III, F-15, and T-34 aircraft; mentored new operations engineers and interns; served as a liaison between projects/researchers and maintenance crews; and supported various career days at Los Angeles International and Van Nuys airports.

Titus first came to NASA Armstrong in 2014, working in the Project Support Office and supporting center projects with planning and scheduling. Toward the end of that stint, she was appointed risk manager for the Vehicle Integrated Propulsion Research (VIPR) Phase III project until transitioning to the Armstrong Operations Engineering branch in 2015.

Prior to coming to NASA, Titus provided Space Transportation System (STS)-130 and STS-133 launch media support in 2010 and 2011 for the news publication, collectSPACE.

Education

Titus earned a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, in 2004. She began her studies toward a Ph.D. in educational technology and educational psychology at Michigan State University in East Lansing. She taught various university-level courses; developed and adapted curricula; and mentored students. She left the program after completing the coursework to focus on engineering.

Personal

In her free time, Titus can be found hiking and skiing in the Sierra Nevada.