Lisa Guerra has 30 years of experience in the NASA aerospace community. Ms. Guerra is currently affiliated with the Office of the Administrator at NASA Headquarters as a Senior Advisor working a wide range of Agency issues, particularly initiatives around program management; acquisition strategy; and NASA’s workforce and operating model. She recently fulfilled an assignment from NASA to establish a space systems engineering curriculum at The University of Texas at Austin, as a pilot for national dissemination through the Space Grant Consortia. While at UT Austin, Ms. Guerra also contributed to the NSF-sponsored UTeachEngineering Program, developing a model high school engineering course. Ms. Guerra’s previous position at NASA Headquarters was Director of the Directorate Integration Office in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. In that position, her responsibilities involved strategic planning, international cooperation, cross-directorate coordination, architecture analysis, and exploration control boards. Accomplishments included formulation of the Global Exploration Strategy, securing the RAD and MEDLI instruments on the Mars Science Lab mission, and development of Level 1 requirements for exploration. Prior to NASA’s sanctioned direction toward exploration in 2004, Ms. Guerra managed the Decadal Planning Team, responsible for developing innovative concepts and options that merged human and robotic space exploration. Ms. Guerra also worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center as Program Integration Manager for future high-energy astrophysics missions, particularly the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Accomplishments related to JWST included development of the acquisition strategy, negotiations regarding international partners’ contributions, and establishment of a review board. She began her career at the Johnson Space Center working for Eagle Engineering and SAIC, focused on conceptual design of advanced spacecraft for human missions to the Moon and Mars.
Ms. Guerra is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal; the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal; and the 2018 Presidential Rank Award.
Ms. Guerra earned a B.S in Aerospace Engineering and a B.A. in English from the University of Notre Dame. She received a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.
