Announcement of New NASA SMD Heliophysics Director

Dr. Barbara Giles has accepted the position of Director for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Heliophysics Division. Her appointment to this position is effective as of September 30, 2011.

Dr. Giles earned her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1993 and joined Marshall Space Flight Center where she was part of a team that built suborbital and spaceflight heliophysics instrumentation. Her research interests focused on the Earth’s magnetosphere with emphasis on the ionosphere’s contribution to magnetospheric dynamics.

In 1998, Dr. Giles transferred to the Goddard Space Flight Center to pursue new flight mission opportunities. She stepped into the role of Deputy Project Scientist, and was promoted later to Project Scientist for the Polar and Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) missions. In 2004, Dr. Giles came to NASA Headquarters as the Program Scientist for RBSP and led the science procurement for that mission. She is now the Program Scientist for the Solar Terrestrial Probes Program (STP) and managed the procurement for the next Explorer Program missions. As the Heliophysics strategic planning lead at Headquarters, she has charted the Division’s course for the future by planning new missions to study the Sun, its effects on the Earth’s space environment, and its influences out to the far reaches of the heliosphere.