Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

Nargess Memarsadeghi, Computer Engineer for the Cosmos

Nargess Memarsadeghi is the associate branch head of the Software Systems Engineering branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Courtesy of Nargess Memarsadeghi
Nargess Memarsadeghi is the associate branch head of the Software Systems Engineering branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Courtesy of Nargess Memarsadeghi

When it comes to building spaceflight missions, the software is at least as important as the hardware. For computer engineer Nargess Memarsadeghi, having a hand in the programming is like getting to go along for the ride.

Name: Nargess Memarsadeghi
Title: Associate Branch Head, Software Systems Engineering Branch
Formal Job Classification: Supervisory Computer Engineer
Organization: Software Systems Engineering Branch, Software Engineering Division, Engineering Directorate (Code 581)

What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?

As associate branch head for the Software Systems Engineering Branch, I spend half of my time supporting the branch head on internal functions, different planning activities, and supervising our employees who are senior software systems engineers and often team leads themselves.

For the other half of my time, I work on a technical project. Currently, I am supporting the Human Landing Systems (HLS) project. I am a member of NASA HLS Software Insight Team working with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Johnson Space Center in Houston, and industry partners SpaceX and Blue Origin to meet software requirements and milestones, and to ensure the Artemis campaign succeeds in taking astronauts to the Moon.

I enjoy learning about various NASA missions and being part of them either by supporting our branch employees who work on these missions or by being a project team member and making technical contributions directly.

Why did you become a software engineer?

I always loved math and sciences. Software engineering seemed like a good and practical way to apply math to different scientific and engineering applications.

What is your educational background?

I got my bachelor’s (2001), master’s (2004), and doctorate (2007) degrees in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park.

How did you come to Goddard?

I joined Goddard in 2001 right after college. The university had a recruitment event at its career center. I signed up for an interview with NASA, which went well…

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