Dava Newman: Director of the MIT Media Lab, the Mecca of Global Innovation

Dava Newman is the Director of the MIT Media Lab. She holds the title of Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is a faculty member of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She was appointed as a MacVicar Faculty Fellow—an honor recognizing her significant contributions to undergraduate education—and served as the Director of the Technology and Policy Program (TPP) at MIT from 2003 to 2015. From 2011 to 2015 and 2017 to 2021, she served as the Director of the MIT-Portugal Program. As the head of TPP, she led this unique, multidisciplinary graduate program alongside more than 1,300 alumni and faculty members across all five schools within the Institute. She has been a member of the faculty at the MIT School of Engineering and the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics for 28 years and holds a Top Secret security clearance. 

Dr. Dava Newman also served as the Deputy Administrator of NASA (2015–2017). Nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2015, she worked alongside the NASA Administrator to articulate the agency's vision, provide overall leadership and policy direction, and represent NASA to the Executive Office of the President and Congress.