NASA’s System-Wide Safety project is focused on safe operations of unmanned vehicles in the National Airspace System. 

Dr. Wendy A. Okolo is the Associate Project Manager for NASA’s System-Wide Safety project, which seeks to develop new research tools, innovative aerospace technologies, and re-defined operational methods. Researchers and stakeholders are developing an integrated safety management solution that considers the new unmanned entrants into the airspace. The project looks at safety from both a design and operations perspective.

Wendy describes the System-Wide Safety project, including its participants and objectives. We consider what “safety” means in this context, project methodology and timeline, beneficiaries of the project, and accomplishments to date. She explains the complexities of the project and collaborating with established and new entrants in the unmanned aircraft space.

As an aerospace controls research engineer, Wendy’s expertise is in unconventional controls system design and optimization for air and space vehicles. Wendy’s research experiences include stints at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Advanced Development Programs of Lockheed Martin (the Skunkworks). She worked on multi-aircraft formation flight, and performance-optimizing flight control for the Joint Strike Fighter F-35C aircraft.

At 26 years old, Wendy became the first black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is the recipient of the 2020 NASA Ames Award for Researcher and the 2019 NASA Ames Early Career Researcher Award. She also received the 2019 Black Engineer of the Year Award for Most Promising Engineer in the U.S. Government, the 2019 Women In Aerospace Award for Initiative, Inspiration & Impact, and the 2019 U.T. Arlington Distinguished Recent Graduate Award.