Montana native confirmed to NASA post
Montana native Dava Newman was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Monday to be deputy administrator at NASA.
"Dava Newman will be a strong leader at NASA and play a major role in the future of engineering in this country. I thank her for her many years in the classroom inspiring young folks to launch a career in STEM. All Montanans can be proud of her great accomplishments," Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said in a news release.
Newman is a graduate of Capital High School in Helena. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and her master's degree and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is currently a professor of Aeronautics and Engineering Systems.
"It's very exciting, and an enormous honor," Newman said in an MIT news release Oct. 17 about her nomination. "I look forward to doing the best work I can, to applying myself 100 percent, to learning a lot, and to advancing our national aerospace goals."
"Dr. Newman is a talented individual, passionate about aerospace engineering, and is generating awareness of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math opportunities in Montana's students," Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said on the Senate floor before the vote. "Dr. Newman is an incredibly accomplished Montanan who truly exemplifies our state's legacy of public service. I know she will lead with honor and is prepared for whatever challenges may lie ahead."
Newman is best known for research on form-fitting spacesuits that use mechanical counterpressure to provide greater freedom of motion for astronauts than conventional suits.
Her research has focused on how humans can more effectively work in weightlessness and reduced gravity environments.
"Ultimately, the big advantage is mobility, and a very lightweight suit for planetary exploration," Newman said in a Sept. 18 news release.
In 2008, she contributed to a report on the future of human spaceflight prepared by the Space, Policy and Society Research Group.
That report endorsed the then-impending retirement of the space shuttle and an extension of the international space station to 2020.
It also called for a "balance" in resources for exploration of the moon, Mars and other destinations.
More recently, Newman served on the technical panel that supported the National Academies' Committee on Human Spaceflight.
That panel helped develop several different "pathways" for human space exploration, all leading to the long-term goal of humans on the surface of Mars, featured in the committee's final report published in June.