Federal Contractors/Technology: CLAYTON P. TURNER

Turner launched his career at NASA in 1990 as a design engineer with the federal space agency’s Lidar In-Space Technology Experiment project. Over the years, he’s worked on many other projects, including the flight test of the Ares 1-X rocket and the entry, descent and landing segment for the 2012 Mars Curiosity rover mission. In 2019, he became the first Black head of the Langley Research Center, a facility made famous by the “Hidden Figures” film depicting three Black women mathematicians who were instrumental in assisting with John Glenn’s 1962 Earth orbit.

NASA Langley is currently working on technology to aid upcoming missions to Mars and the moon, including a $93 million heat shield completed in June. President Joe Biden has proposed a nearly $26 billion budget for the agency in 2023, about $1 billion of which would go to Langley if approved by Congress.

Turner considers diversity a hallmark of NASA, explaining that bringing different perspectives and skills together for the betterment of humankind is essential to overall greater success. The Rochester Institute of Technology graduate has won several awards, including the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal.