Dr. Daniel M. Schumacher Named to Lead NASA’s Marshall Center’s Science & Technology Office

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Dr. Daniel M. Schumacher has been appointed director of the Science & Technology Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Schumacher holds primary management responsibility for day-to-day operations of the office and its more than 250 civil service and contract employees. The organization is charged with pursuing basic and applied research to achieve NASA’s science and exploration objectives; and management and development of new technologies for exploration

The office also is responsible for integrating early-stage research and game-changing technology development activities for projects assigned to and competitively won by Marshall. Further, the office manages the Centennial Challenges Program, NASA’s space competition prize contests for non-government funded technology achievements by American entrepreneurs and inventor teams.

Schumacher was appointed in 2008 to the Senior Executive Service — the personnel system that covers most of the top managerial, supervisory and policy positions in the executive branch of the federal government.

From 2010-2011, Schumacher served as manager of the Marshall Center’s Science & Mission Systems Office, which managed such programs as the Chandra X-ray Observatory; the SERVIR regional, environmental monitoring and mapping system; cryogenic testing of the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope mirrors; and the Robotic Lander Development Project.

Schumacher was director of Marshall’s Office of Strategic Analysis & Communications from 2008-2010.Under his leadership, the office developed analysis for strategic decision making and numerous internal and external communications conduits to communicate to Marshall and NASA stakeholders.

From 2007-2008, he was deputy project manager of the Lunar Lander Project Office at Marshall. He led early design of hardware and integrated systems for crewed moon landings planned in coming decades. He managed the Marshall Center’s Exploration Flight Projects Office from 2006-2007, leading work on the Orion crew exploration vehicle, the spacecraft that will carry a new generation of human explorers to destinations beyond low Earth orbit.

In 2005, Schumacher accepted a one-year assignment to NASA Headquarters in Washington. His duties included serving as the NASA chief engineer’s representative on the Nunn-McCurdy congressional review of the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. Since 1994, that system has combined satellites and technology from NASA, the Department of Defense and the Department of Commerce to monitor and share information about weather and global environmental conditions.

From 2003 to 2005, he was manager of Systems Engineering, Integration and Testing for the X-37 Project Office, overseeing development of an orbital demonstrator craft intended to test future launch technologies on orbit and during atmospheric reentry.

Schumacher began his NASA career in 2001 in Marshall’s Second Generation Launch Vehicle Program Office. He started his professional career in 1989 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where he served as team lead on the F-16 aircraft and then spent seven years in Huntsville as a systems engineer on the Theater High Altitude Area Defense Project, a key element of U.S. missile defense systems. He later served as an engineer for XonTech, Inc., a commercial science and technology firm in Van Nuys, Calif., and in the Program Executive Office for Missile Defense at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., before joining NASA.

A native of San Antonio, Texas, Schumacher earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1989 from Texas A&M University in College Station. He received his master’s degree and doctorate in engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, in 1990 and 2005, respectively.

During his years of federal service, he has received numerous awards, including an Achievement Medal for Civilian Service in 1998, presented by the Department of the Army to honor sustained, superior service or achievement benefiting the U.S. Armed Forces. He is the recipient of several NASA group achievement and special service awards. He has completed management and leadership courses at Georgetown University in Washington and the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C. He completed the Harvard Senior Executive Fellows Program in May 2008.

Dr. Schumacher, his wife Julie and their two children live in Madison, Ala.