Program Manager, Next Gen STEM, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Office of STEM Engagement, NASA Headquarters
B.S. ASE 1985, Mississippi State University
M.S. ASE 1986, Mississippi State University
Ph.D. ASE 2001, The University of Texas at Austin
Carrie Olsen is the program manager for Next Gen STEM in NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement. Next Gen STEM is the agency’s premier program supporting K-12 students and their formal and informal educators, with content and programming connecting students with NASA’s missions, projects and people, inspiring them to persist in STEM learning to build the nation’s future STEM workforce.
Olsen received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in aerospace engineering from Mississippi State University and her Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.
Her professional career began at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in March 1987 as an orbit analysis engineer and flight controller for the Space Shuttle STS-35 mission. She supported five Spacelab missions in total before joining the trajectories, guidance and navigation team in 1995, supporting numerous programs such as Automated Rendezvous and Capture, X-33 and Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). She returned to operations at MSFC in 2000 when she was selected as one of the first International Space Station (ISS) Payload Operations Directors (POD). In 2004 Olsen accepted a position at Mississippi State University as an assistant professor of aerospace engineering, where she was instrumental in designing and implementing a dual-track aerospace engineering degree program.
Returning to NASA-MSFC in 2008, she served as the lead system integration engineer for the Ares I launch vehicle design. She was promoted in 2009 to chief of Guidance, Navigation and Mission Analysis organization at MSFC, and served in that role until 2015. Olsen then returned to ISS operations at MSFC, recertifying as a POD and helping lead the transformation of ISS payload operations to support a greatly expanding onboard research portfolio. In 2016 she became Chief of the POD Office, the technical authority for the entire MSFC payload operations effort. Olsen accepted a detail to NASA headquarters in Washington, DC in 2018 to serve as executive officer to the associate administrator for STEM Engagement. This detail led to the position she now holds.
Olsen considers her greatest personal accomplishments to be her leadership in ISS operations, shepherding the critical scientific and technology research onboard, her work creating a dual-track aerospace engineering program at Mississippi State, and her work expanding the staff and capabilities of the Guidance, Navigation and Mission Analysis group at MSFC. Her passion and greatest strength are building and leading high-performing teams. Her greatest pride comes from the successes of the many she has hired, mentored and led.
