John A. Carr

Background

About John A. Carr

Born and raise In Iowa, currently serving at NASA in Huntsville Al. I am a hardworking, engaged, proactive engineer who has built extensive experience throughout 10+ years in academia, private industry, and government. I started my career at Iowa State University, achieving a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. These early studies developed my problem solving and critical thinking skills and gave me a strong theoretical background. I then joined the R&D department at Micron Technology, Inc, where I continued to develop my hardware capabilities and learned the intricacies of engineering a product from design to market. This experience led me to a desire for greater theoretical understanding and more in-depth technical work, bringing me to graduate school. Along with detailed coursework, graduate school taught me how to venture into the unknown and gave me project management experience as I ran my own research projects. Further, graduate school developed my teaching and mentorship skills and gave me a first look at pedagogical methods. After completing a Master’s and Doctorate in electrical engineering, I next joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA quickly taught me the value and proper application of stringent engineering process as well as strengthened my communication and collaboration skills as I have worked complex systems with a very broad engineering team. At NASA I have also acted as a principal investigator (P.I.), proposing and successfully executing over $4.5M in R&D programs. These projects have given me the continued opportunity to learn how to apply my technical expertise in a fast paced development environment and have taught me how to lead a team of diverse engineers as well as manage project complexities at the program level. For the last two years, I have served as the Deputy Center Chief Technologist for the Marshall Space Flight Center. This opportunity has allowed me to apply and grow my technology development experience to the macro-scale; becoming a champion for innovation at both the NASA Center and Gency levels. I have been working with senior and executive leaders to build and execute center level technology development strategy, managing technology development at the portfolio level, working with technologists on strategic development and infusion plans, and further developing both my proposal writing and proposal reviewing skills.