RELEASE 16-054
Jody Singer Harnesses 'Need For Speed' to Make Things Move at NASA
 Jody Singer has been appointed deputy director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Credits: NASA/MSFC/Fred Deaton |
 In a photograph from October 2000, Jody Singer smiles as Alex McCool, then manager of the Space Shuttle Projects Office, tries to cut her tie in a tradition noting her first time to serve on a space shuttle Mission Management Team. Looking on is David Martin, then deputy project manager of the Solid Rocket Booster Office. Singer had reinforced her tie with cardboard as a surprise. The photo was taken during STS-92, the shuttle program's 100th mission. Credits: Jody Singer |
Jody Singer likes to make things move. Fast.
At 9 she was galloping horses. Later came cars -- and rockets.
"There really was a need for speed," Singer said recently, smiling in her new office, surrounded by spacecraft models and astronaut photos. She has worked at NASA for more than 30 years and is the newly named deputy director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Marshall is where NASA's Space Launch System -- the world's most powerful rocket for human space exploration -- is being developed and managed, along with science experiments aboard the International Space Station and many other research and technology programs. SLS will be able to carry astronauts in the Orion spacecraft on deep-space missions, including our journey to Mars.
SLS is only the latest chapter of Marshall's efforts to launch human explorers to space, which includes development of the Saturn V rockets that launched Apollo crews to the moon and the propulsion systems for the space shuttle that made regular access to Earth orbit and the building of the space station a reality.
Singer grew up in Hartselle, Alabama, only about 35 miles from Marshall, where some of her school friends' moms and dads worked on the moon rockets. A self-described "tomboy," she loved the horses, cattle and other animals on the family's small farm, and even thought about becoming a veterinarian. But Singer also loved reading about science and space. She liked to tinker, to get her hands dirty figuring out what made things move and work.
"I had one of the most Disneyland childhoods on the farm that anyone could wish for," Singer said. "There were bumps and bruises, but it gave me confidence. And it taught me basics: to not be afraid of hard work and to know that, no matter how hard you work on some things, they don't always turn out the way you want."
Her parents were powerful role models, and never gave any indication that there was anything she couldn't do. Her father, David Sandlin, was a Morgan County sheriff and also worked as a machinist at Wolverine Tube. He died when Singer was 17 and her mother, Edith Sandlin, who lives in Danville, Alabama, earned an accounting degree and took on new roles to care for her family solo, working at Copeland Corp. in Hartselle, which manufactures compressors and other equipment.
Singer’s family made education a top priority, and she was interested in engineering by the time she went to Morgan County High School in Hartselle, where "a great education and teachers really helped shape me." She went on to earn her bachelor's degree in industrial engineering at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1983.
She applied for a position at NASA after graduation, but there was little hiring at that time. Singer's first engineering job was for General Motors, at a plant in Jackson, Mississippi, that produced wiring harnesses. It was tough work, and it was her first time truly on her own, away from home. "I really pulled up roots and proved to myself that I could do it on my own," she said.
Singer liked that job a lot. But in 1985 NASA called about a position at Marshall. And from day one, Singer knew that making things move at NASA was her dream job.
"I thought, 'Wow, am I really here, working in the space program?' I have always had a sense of pride when I tell people I’m with NASA," she said.
Singer first worked in planning and development, giving her a view of the origins of a mission, and then as an engineer in the Space Shuttle Main Engine office, becoming part of the Return to Flight activities after the Challenger accident in 1986. She spent a decade rising in the shuttle External Tank Project Office, and was the first woman to serve as a project manager and deputy manager in the shuttle propulsion program at Marshall. She became deputy manager of the Shuttle Projects Office in 2002 and was manager of the Reusable Solid Rocket Booster Office from 2002-07.
In 2010, as the shuttle program neared its successful conclusion, she was at the same time deputy of both the Space Shuttle Propulsion Office and the Ares Project Office, helping ensure the transition of the workforce and assets for SLS development. Singer was deputy program manager of SLS from 2011 to 2013, when she became manager of the Marshall Flight Programs and Partnerships Office, the position she held when named Marshall's deputy director.
Over the years in college and in the workplace, Singer was aware that as a female engineer, she was in the minority. But gender never held her back. Many mentors along the way, male and female, guided her to tackle new and difficult assignments. Now, as deputy director of one of NASA’s largest field centers, her biggest rewards aren’t just developing spacecraft systems – they come from working with people and developing a workforce capable of collaborating to make NASA's missions successful.
"I want them to be better than me," Singer said. "They're the next generation. They're the ones who are going to keep us moving forward."
Her career seems custom-crafted to shape the Marshall team at a time when NASA is on the verge of flight-testing SLS, the launch vehicle that will make it possible for astronauts to reach Mars.
They can't get there fast enough for Singer. For over three decades, she has played an important part in making it possible for men and women to fly very high, very fast, to explore living and working in space for the benefit of everyone on Earth.
“NASA is one of the places where you feel you can really make a difference," Singer said. "Not just for the people immediately around you, but for the nation and world."
She's not slowing down now.
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