{"id":181683,"date":"2025-02-28T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=827157"},"modified":"2025-02-28T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T13:00:00","slug":"jamie-dunn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=181683","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Dunn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Project Manager – Goddard Space Flight Center<\/strong><\/p>\n

Growing up near Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Jamie Dunn \u2014 now a project manager for NASA\u2019s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope \u2014 naturally became interested in planes. While he initially wanted to be a pilot, he chose aerospace engineering as a college major.<\/p>\n

\u201cI originally had no plans to work in the space industry,\u201d Jamie recalls. \u201cI never imagined I\u2019d be working at NASA.\u201d<\/p>\n

While pursuing his degree at the University of Maryland, he heard about a cooperative education program at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He applied, was accepted, and has been at Goddard ever since.<\/p>\n

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\"a<\/a><\/figure>
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Jamie Dunn serves as a project manager for NASA\u2019s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The observatory is currently taking shape in the largest clean room at the agency\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., seen behind Jamie in this photo.<\/div>\n
NASA\/Chris Gunn<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he says. \u201cBefore getting into the co-op program, I didn\u2019t even know that job existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s section head \u2014 his first supervisory role.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. That role teed him up for subsequent positions with the James Webb Space Telescope\u2019s ISIM<\/a> (Integrated Science Instrument Module) \u2014 first as the integration and testing manager, then deputy project manager, and ultimately the manager.<\/p>\n

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\"Jamie<\/a><\/figure>
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Jamie Dunn, pictured at left, gives a tour to Nicola Fox (center), the associate administrator for science, and Wanda Peters (at right), the associate administrator for programs.<\/div>\n
NASA\/Jolearra Tshiteya<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe thirteen years I was on ISIM were like thirty,\u201d Jamie says. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following his time with Webb, Jamie spent a couple of years working on GOES-R<\/a> (the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites\u2013R Series), initially as deputy project manager and then project manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest change was that GOES is out-of-house, so none of the hardware was developed at Goddard,\u201d Jamie says. \u201cThat\u2019s a huge difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Jamie joined the Roman team in his current position of project manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn project management, you\u2019re there to keep the train on the tracks and get to the station on time,\u201d he says. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of years into the role, the COVID-19 pandemic struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to put a spacecraft together when you\u2019re not allowed to come to work,\u201d Jamie says. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the Roman mission is within a couple years of launch. Jamie\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we launch this thing, that\u2019ll definitely be the highlight of my career,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s really an honor to work with such a brilliant and dedicated team.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a surprising amount of overlap between the two, because at the end of the day, it all comes down to people,\u201d he says. \u201cA 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 \u201crush to the top.\u201d He says, \u201cI think it\u2019s very important to make sure you spend time along the way to learn your craft. There\u2019s no substitute for experience, and there are a lot of people to listen to and learn from along the way. Then you\u2019ll be better prepared when you do land the job you\u2019re ultimately aiming for.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Ashley Balzer<\/strong>
NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Project Manager \u2013 Goddard Space Flight Center Growing up near Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Jamie Dunn \u2014 now a project manager for NASA\u2019s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope \u2014 naturally became interested in planes. While he initially wanted to be a pilot, he chose aerospace engineering as a college major. \u201cI originally had [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15614,15619,15618,15620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goddard-space-flight-center","category-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope","category-people-of-goddard","category-people-of-nasa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181684,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181683\/revisions\/181684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}