RoundupReads Vanessa Wyche named next deputy director of Johnson

Vanessa Wyche named next deputy director of Johnson

2018-08-08
Effective immediately, Vanessa Wyche is the next deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Wyche will be responsible for assisting Johnson Director Mark Geyer with the technical, management and administration of Johnson’s resources, programs and functions. She most recently served as director of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate and also completed a detail as the JSC deputy director earlier this year.

In a note to employees, Geyer said of Wyche’s selection, “Vanessa has a deep background at JSC with significant program experience in almost all of the human spaceflight programs hosted here. Vanessa is respected throughout NASA, has built agency-wide relationships during her nearly three-decade career and will serve JSC well as we continue to lead human space exploration in Houston.

“I am excited about JSC’s future and about the role Vanessa will play in making it happen.”

Wyche said of her new post, “I am incredibly humbled to take on this role at JSC, and also excited to assist Mark with leading the home of human spaceflight. I look forward to working with the talented employees at JSC as we work toward our mission of taking humans farther into the solar system.” 

Read more about Wyche from her biography, below.

Vanessa E. Wyche
Deputy Director, NASA Johnson Space Center


Vanessa E. Wyche is deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, a position she assumed on Aug. 8, 2018. In this role, Wyche assists in leading an organization of nearly 10,000 civil service and contractor employees in Houston — including those at White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico — and also assists with a broad range of human spaceflight activities.

Prior to her position as deputy director, Wyche served as the director of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate at JSC, where she provided executive guidance and direction of a multi-disciplined organization to enable human and robotic exploration of deep space.

Wyche previously served as acting deputy director of JSC from September 2017 to February 2018.

Before joining JSC in 1989, she worked for the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, D.C. Over the span of her career with NASA, she has held several key leadership positions: in the Space Shuttle Program, as a flight manager; in the Constellation Program, as director of Operations and Test Integration; as acting director for the Human Exploration Development Support Directorate; as associate director of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate; and assistant center director at JSC.

A strong supporter of Innovation and Inclusion (I&I) at JSC, Wyche has served as a member of JSC’s I&I Council and co-executive sponsor of “Emerge,” an employee resource group for early-career employees. She advocates mentoring and is a passionate promoter of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in her community, leading efforts to oversee an annual science fair at an underserved elementary school and supporting numerous STEM-outreach activities via her affiliations with The Links, Incorporated, Boy Scouts of America and Jack and Jill of America.

She has received numerous honors — notably, two NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals, two NASA Achievement Medals, a JSC Innovation Award, 2014 Women@NASA awardee, a national “2016 Women Worth Watching” honoree by Profiles in Diversity Journal, and recognized as a 2017 “Inspiring Woman from South Carolina” by Women in Philanthropy and Leadership at Coastal Carolina University.

A South Carolina native, Wyche graduated from Clemson University with a Bachelor of Science in engineering and Master of Science in bioengineering. She resides in Houston with her husband George Wyche Jr., Esquire, and they are the proud parents of one son, George Wyche III, a graduate student pursuing a Master of Science in psychology.
Vanessa Wyche has been named the next deputy director of NASA's Johnson Space Center, effective immediately. Image Credit: NASA