Year Inducted: 2020
Jody Singer has used her engineering and leadership skills to adapt the resources of NASA to fit the needs of each mission, helping the United States continue its space ambitions. Her dedication to human and science flight programs has been evident throughout her 34-year career with the space agency and has led her to oversee one of its largest field installations.
As director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Singer manages nearly 6,000 civil service and contractor employees either on site or nearby and steers a $2.8 billion budget. In her role she is a critical part of returning NASA astronauts and scientists to the Moon and beyond on American-made rockets and spaceflight vehicles.
She grew up in Hartselle, Alabama, and graduated from The University of Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1983. She began her career with NASA in 1985 through the professional intern program in the mission planning and development office. In 1986, she joined the Space Shuttle Program office, where she held various roles until the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. She was an engineer on the main engine and involved with return to flight activities after the Challenger accident. She also served in several
management roles on the external tank before becoming the first female project manager for the Reusable Solid Rocket Booster Project and led the team during the Columbia return to flight activities.
During a time of transition at NASA she held three deputy positions for three major programs from 2010 to 2012. As deputy for the Shuttle Propulsion Office, she successfully guided fly-out and retirement of the space shuttle in 2011. During this time, Singer also established the Ares project as a replacement of the shuttle for crew and cargo delivery to space as the deputy of the Ares Project Office. She also transitioned its workforce and assets after the project’s cancellation.
Then she stood up a new program, the Space Launch System, as the agency’s focus shifted beyond low-Earth orbit. As the deputy program manager of the SLS at Marshall, she helped oversee nearly 3,000 civil servants and contractors involved in the developing and testing of the vehicle, the most powerful rocket ever built, able to carry astronauts in NASA’s Orion spacecraft on deep space missions to the Moon and ultimately to Mars.
From 2013 through 2016, Singer served as the manager of the Flight Programs and Partnerships Office at Marshall, where she held primary responsibility for the center’s work with human advanced exploration projects, science flight mission programs, technology demonstration missions, commercial crew and International Space Station life support systems, research facilities, and payload operations. After success in that role, she was appointed deputy director of Marshall in early 2016, assisting with the daily management of the center’s workforce and operations.
In July 2018, she was named acting director, and two months later selected as the full-time director, the first woman to lead Marshall. In 2002, she was appointed to the Senior Executive Service, the personnel system covering top managerial positions in federal agencies. Her honors include NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals and two Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive Awards, the highest honor for career federal employees. She was also awarded the Silver Snoopy Award by the NASA astronaut corps.
