NASA is not simply inquisitive about placing extra girls in house. The company’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has appointed Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Dr. Laurie Leshin as its first feminine director. She’ll assume the function on May sixteenth, changing former director Michael Watkins (who retired in August 2021) and interim director Lt. Gen Larry James. She’ll additionally function vp of Caltech, which manages the JPL.
Leshin has in depth expertise, each in science and in breaking new floor. She has held senior positions in NASA, together with a key director function on the Goddard Space Flight Center. As deputy affiliate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, she laid among the groundwork for each industrial spaceflight and Artemis. She was Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s science dean, and has served as WPI’s first feminine president since 2014.
The incoming JPL director has additionally pursued science of her personal. She has been a proponent of and contributor to Mars pattern return missions, and helped examine information from the Curiosity rover. The appointment can also be a return of types of Leshin, as she earned her graduate levels at Caltech.
Caltech mentioned Leshin was a chief candidate to steer the JPL due to her “strategic strategy” to science and expertise, recognition of NASA’s main function in science, navigation of advanced establishments and talent to “encourage the subsequent technology” of scientists and engineers. In different phrases, she might be a superb match for a company the place long-term planning is completely obligatory.