NOAA today announced Dr. Karen St. Germain, an accomplished remote sensing engineer and long-time leader in the development of federal space programs, will assume the duties of Deputy Assistant Administrator for Systems for its Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS).
In her new position, St. Germain will guide the ongoing development and deployment of NOAA’s two major satellite programs (the Joint Polar Satellite System and Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite-R series), the COSMIC-2 mission, which launched earlier this year and the upcoming Space Weather Follow-On. She will also lead the development of the next-generation capabilities that will replenish and augment these systems in the future.
In her former position as director of the NESDIS Office of Systems Architecture and Advanced Planning, St. Germain led the team that planned NOAA’s future Earth observation systems, focusing on a future architecture that is more flexible, stable and responsive.
“Karen’s skillset in strategic planning and leading complex, multi-organizational space programs of major significance are a major benefit to NOAA,” said Steve Volz, Ph.D., assistant NOAA administrator for NESDIS. “She has demonstrated success in acquiring and transitioning new technology into operational systems, which will be particularly useful for NOAA and NESDIS as we move forward with our new observing systems.”
"I am deeply committed to this mission and it is a privilege to serve the public in this role. There is no more exciting time to be involved in Earth observations than right now, with the pace of innovation and the growing interest in observation data," St. Germain said. "We have a mission-dedicated team at NESDIS, focused on what we need to do in flight and on the ground protect to lives and strengthen the economy through better forecasts and warnings. I'm honored to be part of that team."
In her previous roles at NOAA, St. Germain led all aspects of system performance during the development of the successful NOAA-NASA Suomi-NPP satellite from 2006 to 2011. In 2011, she began working at the U.S. Department of Defense, in the Space, Strategic and Intelligence Systems Office, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. She was responsible for the acquisition oversight of DoD’s strategic missile warning and space-based environmental monitoring portfolio and she led the Conventional Prompt Global Strike Program.
Before joining NOAA, St. Germain had a successful research career at the University of Massachusetts, the University of Nebraska and the Naval Research Laboratory. She has performed research aboard ice-breakers in the Arctic and Antarctic, flown through hurricanes and tropical storms on NOAA’s P-3 airplanes and measured glacial ice on a snowmobile traverse of the Greenland ice sheet.
St. Germain holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Union College (1987) and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts (1993). She is also a Distinguished Graduate of the National War College, National Defense University, where she earned a Master of Science degree in National Security Strategy in 2013.