Lara Kearney

Ms. Kearney serves as Deputy Manager, Gateway Program, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC). In this capacity, she shares responsibility with the Program Manager for implementation of the Gateway Program’s goals and objectives, ensuring consistency with the Agency’s exploration strategy and delivering the Gateway system within technical and programmatic requirements. She shares responsibility for the day-to-day management of the Gateway Program, including recommending and implementing program policy and directing the Program’s development, test, production, and operations activities. She manages NASA, contractor, private industry and international partner contributions to the Gateway throughout the development life cycle, ensuring integration of the Gateway across its Power and Propulsion, Habitation, Logistics, Robotics, and Airlock Elements.

Ms. Kearney has been at NASA JSC for twenty-six years, the first eight as a contractor and the last eighteen as a civil servant. In addition to the Gateway Program Office, she has worked in the JSC’s Space Life Sciences Directorate, Engineering Directorate, the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Office and the Orion Program Office. She has a B.S. and an M.E., both in Biomedical Engineering, from Texas A&M University, and an Executive MBA from the Naval Postgraduate School. She holds a Federal Acquisition Certification and a Project Management Professional (PMP)® Credential.

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.