Jamie Dunn

Project Manager – Goddard Space Flight Center

Growing up near Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Jamie Dunn — now a project manager for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — naturally became interested in planes. While he initially wanted to be a pilot, he chose aerospace engineering as a college major.

“I originally had no plans to work in the space industry,” Jamie recalls. “I never imagined I’d be working at NASA.”

While pursuing his degree at the University of Maryland, he heard about a cooperative education program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He applied, was accepted, and has been at Goddard ever since.

“I started out as a thermal vacuum test engineer, first focusing on smaller stuff and then I worked my way up to doing more complicated tests,” he says. “Before getting into the co-op program, I didn’t even know that job existed.”

Jamie worked at Goddard mostly part-time while going to school and the role transitioned to a full-time job upon graduation. He continued working as a test engineer for several years and then became his group’s section head — his first supervisory role.

From there, Jamie became the integration and testing manager for the Wide Field Camera 3, which was flown on Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4. That role teed him up for subsequent positions with the James Webb Space Telescope’s ISIM (Integrated Science Instrument Module) — first as the integration and testing manager, then deputy project manager, and ultimately the manager.

“The thirteen years I was on ISIM were like thirty,” Jamie says. “It was a very complex role involving international partnerships, contractors, and in-house personnel. We overcame a lot of adversity over the years in completing our work, and I learned a tremendous amount to be applied to my career going forward.”

Following his time with Webb, Jamie spent a couple of years working on GOES-R (the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites–R Series), initially as deputy project manager and then project manager.

“The biggest change was that GOES is out-of-house, so none of the hardware was developed at Goddard,” Jamie says. “That’s a huge difference.”

In 2018, Jamie joined the Roman team in his current position of project manager.

“In project management, you’re there to keep the train on the tracks and get to the station on time,” he says. “I focus heavily on programmatics, working closely with mission systems and project science, whose primary focus is on technical performance and science return. And when you have a healthy balance between them all like we do, it turns out to be a very successful endeavor.”

A couple of years into the role, the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

“It’s hard to put a spacecraft together when you’re not allowed to come to work,” Jamie says. “It was difficult because no one had experienced anything like it before, so everyone was trying to figure it out as we went along. We really focused on the team dynamic, being mindful of personal circumstances while aggressively pushing to resume onsite.”

Now, the Roman mission is within a couple years of launch. Jamie’s looking forward to seeing all the engineering work translate into mind-boggling images of space. Roman will usher in a new era of cosmic surveys, discovering billions of cosmic objects at a rate never before seen in astrophysics.

“When we launch this thing, that’ll definitely be the highlight of my career,” he says. “It’s really an honor to work with such a brilliant and dedicated team.

For much of his time at NASA, Jamie has balanced running a project with running a household, taking care of three sons with his wife.

“There’s a surprising amount of overlap between the two, because at the end of the day, it all comes down to people,” he says. “A lot of the job is psychological; having good working relationships across the team is crucial for success. To others who are interested in pursuing a similar career, Jamie recommends avoiding the “rush to the top.” He says, “I think it’s very important to make sure you spend time along the way to learn your craft. There’s no substitute for experience, and there are a lot of people to listen to and learn from along the way. Then you’ll be better prepared when you do land the job you’re ultimately aiming for.”

By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center