Amy Kaminski

Amy Kaminski currently serves as program executive for prizes and challenges at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, where she works to develop strategies to expand the space agency’s use of a variety of open innovation methods in its research and exploration activities.

She served previously as senior policy advisor in the Office of the Chief Scientist, where she led an initiative to support and expand NASA’s involvement of citizens as contributors to the agency’s research activities. Before joining NASA, Kaminski served as a program examiner at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where she was responsible for analyzing NASA programs and making recommendations to White House policy makers about budgets and ways to improve the performance of NASA programs.  She also has held positions in the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation and at the National Space Society.  She also served as editor of the American Astronautical Society’s Space Times magazine.

Kaminski earned her Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Virginia Tech, where she examined NASA’s relationships with publics outside of traditional government and industry space policy developers.  She holds an M.A. in science, technology, and public policy from The George Washington University and received her B.A. from Cornell University in earth and planetary sciences.