Dava Newman

Director, MIT Media Lab
Apollo Professor of Astronautics

Dr. Dava Newman is the Director of the MIT Media Lab and the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is also a faculty member of the Harvard–MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. From 2015 to 2017, she served as NASA Deputy Administrator, becoming the first female engineer to hold this position, and received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Her research and teaching expertise span aerospace biomedical engineering, human performance, advanced spacesuit design, AI/ML for climate, design, leadership development, innovation, and technology policy. Newman has been the principal investigator (PI) on four spaceflight missions aboard the Space Shuttle, Russian Mir Space Station, and International Space Station, and is best known for her groundbreaking BioSuit™ planetary spacesuit. Recently, she co-founded EarthDNA with partner Guillermo Trotti to accelerate solutions for Earth's ocean, land, and air subsystems by curating satellite data to benefit 100% of humanity.