Karen Barker
Karen D. Barker is the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Federal Legislative Fellow for the Office of Space Commercialization, U.S. Department of Commerce, as the Space Policy Fellow. She is responsible for implementing national space policies and engaging in promoting of U.S. space industry interests and capabilities. Specifically, Ms. Barker represents the Department in discussions related to positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) roadmapping, space transportation, and export control.
Ms. Barker was president of Brahe Corporation before her appointment to the Office of Space Commercialization. She has worked in industry, government, and academia on space matters as engineer, scientist, and manager. She was program manager for sensors and the Global Positioning System (GPS) at Lockheed Martin from 2001 to 2004. Prior to that, Ms. Barker was the Director of Technical Engineering and Spacelift Services for the 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral AFS. Ms. Barker also represented the State of Florida from 1995 to 1998 as Director of Commercial Launch Infrastructure with Spaceport Florida and was responsible for the design and build of hardware and launch facilities at Cape Canaveral. Throughout her career, she has been a visionary on the development of space commerce and the innovative technologies to do so.
From 1989 to 1995, Ms. Barker worked for McDonnell Douglas as an engineer for the Delta II launch services program and program manager for aero/space hardware. She has bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Charleston Southern University and master of sciences in space systems and systems management/MBA from Florida Institute of Technology.
