Karen Gundy-Burlet, Ph.D. PMP, serves as the director of Aerospace Systems and Technology for Crown Consulting Inc. In this role, she directs personnel and technical activities and coordinates the PESS II, NAMS and SIMLABS contracts at NASA’s Ames Research Center. She has also served as a technical area lead in the NASA Ames Aviation Systems Division.

Dr. Gundy-Burlet develops fault management strategies and software for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission, which will prospect permanently shadowed regions of the Moon for resources, particularly water. She was the flight software lead and the software quality lead for the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission. The mission orbited the moon to study the lunar exosphere, including composition and density of the dust atmosphere.

Previously, Dr. Gundy-Burlet was a research scientist and principal investigator at NASA Ames working across a range of aerospace disciplines, including computational fluid dynamics, high performance computing, internal and external flows, modeling and simulation, machine learning and big data, intelligent flight control, validation and verification, and spacecraft flight software.

Dr. Gundy-Burlet holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Stanford University. She is a Project Management Professional, member of the Association for Computing Machinery and an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and has received numerous awards, including NASA Super Star of Modern Aeronautics, NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement medal and NASA Exceptional Service medal.