Speaker

Diana C. Ly is the Deputy Division Director for NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) Division of the Science Mission Directorate. She previously served as BPS’s Deputy Portfolio Manager of the Space Biology portfolio at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley from 2017 to 2022. In this role, Diana was responsible for managing the cost, technical, schedule and risk of a portfolio that consisted of over 70 active grants and payload development and operations for space biology experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) and on other free-flyer platforms. Between her positions with BPS, Diana served as the Earth Science Deputy Chief and the Transform to Open Science (TOPS) Open Science 101 Project Manager.

Before joining NASA as a civil servant in 2017, she spent twelve years as a contractor performing a variety of science roles for the Nanosat Program and Shuttle payloads and operations roles for ISS payloads. Her passion and dedication to teamwork, innovation, and problem solving have earned her multiple awards, including the prestigious Space Flight Awareness Silver Snoopy award.

Diana has a BA in Psychology with minors in Biology and Chemistry from the University of San Francisco and an MBA with an emphasis on Leading Teams and Organizations and Managing Innovation and Technology from the University of Santa Clara. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, learning about different cultures and foods, and spending time with family.