Barbara Adde

Barbara Adde serves as a GS-15 civil servant, in the role of Policy and Strategic Communications (PSC) Director for Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN), within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. In this role since 2008, Ms. Adde is responsible for SCaN’s outreach to SCaN’s key stakeholders, including its customers, the general public, academia, and communities connected to the SCaN Program, such as the tracking stations for SCaN’s networks – the Deep Space Network and the Near Space Network. Her outreach program includes a wide variety of activities, including the SCaN public website, social media, exhibits, traveling exhibits, and the SCaN Intern Project. She also serves as the Executive Secretariat for the Interoperability Plenary and the Interagency Operations Advisory Group, consisting of 15 international space agencies. In 2020, Ms. Adde was named as Designated Federal Official to the Education & Outreach Subcommittee of the National Space Council’s Users’ Advisory Group. As PSC Director, she works closely with NASA’s national and international policy for Positioning, Navigation and Timing, the services of the Global Positioning System (GPS), which is managed by the PSC Deputy Director, James Miller. Ms. Adde began her career at NASA in 1997 as a political appointee in the Office of Legislative Affairs, providing legislative support to the Space Operations Mission Directorate, which included NASA’s human spaceflight programs, the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, and spectrum management, as well as the Office of International and Interagency Relations. Converting to civil service in 2001, she served as Legislative Specialist and Outreach Specialist in the Space Operations Mission Directorate until 2008. Prior to NASA, Ms. Adde served as Confidential Assistant to the Associate Director for Technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as a political appointee, from 1993-1997. Ms. Adde graduated from the University of Delaware in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication. She was appointed to the Space Generation Advisory Council’s Honorary Board in August 2010.