Mayra Natalia Montrose
Program Executive, Earth Science Flight Missions, Science Mission Directorate (SMD), NASA, USA.
Ms Mayra Montrose is Program Executive for Earth Science Flight Missions in the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) of NASA. She currently manages three space missions that will be installed on the International Space Station to monitor solar irradiance (TSIS-1), atmospheric carbon dioxide (OCO-3), and plant health (ECOSTRESS). From 2006 to 2014, she worked at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where she served as Manager of the Presidential National Medal of Science and the NSF Alan T. Waterman Award, and served as the NSF point of contact with the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy for all Presidential awards managed by NSF. She was also the Executive Secretary of the Committee on Science of the President’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) that coordinates science policy for the U.S. Federal Government, and of the Committee on STEM Education of the NSTC.
Ms Montrose began her professional career at NASA, where she worked as Program Manager of the Energy and Water National Applications in the Applied Sciences Program in SMD. Prior to that job, she was Program Manager for Education in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. Ms Montrose worked for five years as Executive Officer to the NASA Chief Scientist. She also worked for five years in the Life Sciences Division as the manager of the Life Sciences Small Payloads program. Ms Montrose’s first job with NASA was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where she worked as an experiment engineer. She has received numerous achievement awards acknowledging her significant contributions, including two from the European Space Agency and the German Space Agency, and the NASA Cooperative External Achievement Award for her efforts in serving as an interface with new prospective commercial partners of NASA. She earned Masters and Bachelor degrees in Computer Engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Ms Montrose was born and raised in Puerto Rico.