The National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) has named Bhavya Lal as acting chief of staff for the agency. As the senior White House appointee at NASA, Lal served as a member of the Biden Presidential Transition Agency Review Team for the agency & oversaw the agency's transition under the Joe Biden-led administration.

In a statement, NASA said that "NASA has named appointees for senior agency positions. Bhavya Lal joins the agency as acting chief of staff, Phillip Thompson will serve as White House liaison, Alicia Brown will serve as associate administrator for the Office of Legislative & Intergovernmental Affairs, & Marc Etkind will serve as associate administrator for the agency's Office of Communications. In addition, Jackie McGuinness will join the agency as press secretary & Reagan Hunter will serve as special assistant for the agency's Office of Legislative & Intergovernmental Affairs".

Lal brings extensive experience in engineering & space technology, serving as a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses Science & Technology Policy Institute (STPI) from 2005 to 2020.

The statement added, "There, she led the analysis of space technology, strategy, & policy for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy & National Space Council, as well as federal space-oriented organizations, including NASA, the Department of Defense, & the intelligence community".

Lal is an active member of the space technology & policy community, having chaired, co-chaired, or served on five high-impact National Academy of Science committees. She served two consecutive terms on the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Federal Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing & was an External Council member of NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program & the Technology, Innovation & Engineering Advisory Committee of the NASA Advisory Council.

Before joining STPI, Lal was president of C-STPS LLC, a science & technology policy research & consulting firm. Prior to that, she was the director of the Center for Science & Technology Policy Studies at Abt Associates, a global policy research consultancy based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Lal will also serve as the senior advisor for budget & finance at NASA.

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