29 Apr 2023

NASA's new head of science Dr Nicola Fox

From Saturday Morning, 9:40 am on 29 April 2023
Official portrait of Dr Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate

Dr Nicola Fox Photo: NASA/Joel Kowsky

NASA’s new head scientist, Dr Nicola Fox, is on a mission to uncover the mysteries of the Universe and has a seven billion dollar budget to do it.

Official portrait of Dr Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Raised in Hertfordshire, UK and encouraged by her parents to think big from an early age, Fox is only the second woman to hold the post, which has the formal title Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate.

In the Astrotech processing facility in Titusville, Florida, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center, on Tuesday, June 5, 2018, technicians and engineers perform light bar testing on NASA's Parker Solar Probe. The Parker Solar Probe will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida no earlier than Aug. 4, 2018. The mission will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.

Technicians and engineers performing light bar testing on NASA's Parker Solar Probe back in 2018 Photo: NASA/Glenn Benson