Johnson Space Center’s new director was hooked from her first experiment

As a child in Conway, S.C., Wyche didn’t grow up wanting to work for NASA. She didn’t know it was an option. But her master’s degree in bioengineering led her to the agency, and the excitement she felt that day sparked a 32-year career.

On June 30, she was named the 13th director of the Johnson Space Center and the first African American woman to lead a NASA center. She replaced Mark Geyer, who stepped down May 3 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

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Her top priority will be ensuring safe and successful missions as NASA continues sending astronauts to the International Space Station and plans its return to the moon. Her second priority will be working with the emerging commercial space sector. She said NASA can partner with companies, academics and the Houston Spaceport to attract more companies to the Houston area and increase the local talent pool.

Wyche must cultivate a workforce for NASA’s current and future needs. She wants it to be a diverse group where distinctions such as “first African American woman” are no longer needed.

And she wants to make sure every child knows that she or he could work at NASA.

“There is a gap in this country of all children being aware of STEM careers,” Wyche said. “I have met adults, people 30 years old that live right here in Houston, that told me, ‘Gosh, I wish I had known that I could have been an engineer at NASA. I didn’t even know that was something I could do.’”

Figuring out how things work

Wyche knows that feeling.

“I didn’t know what an engineer was when I was a little girl,” she said. “I just knew that I liked figuring out how things worked.”

This brought her joy and ultimately led her to Clemson University, where Wyche graduated with a bachelor’s in engineering in 1985 and a master’s in bioengineering in 1987. Prior to NASA, she evaluated medical devices for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Wyche married Houston native George Wyche Jr. (they have a son, George Wyche III) and was lured to Space City by the lower cost of living. Wyche was looking for a new job when she found NASA in 1989.

“I did not know prior to coming to NASA that there was research being done on humans in space,” she said, “and that’s how I began my career. I was doing medical experiments on crew members.”

For her first mission, Wyche helped a scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology design an experiment that studied how the brain processes spatial recognition in microgravity. What astronauts think is up may not actually be up in outer space, so the experiment sought to help them adapt.

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Wyche later became a flight manager for space shuttle missions, leading several missions that helped assemble the International Space Station, and then director of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate at the Johnson Space Center. This directorate has a wide-ranging mission of enabling human and robotic exploration of deep space.

She was deputy director of the Johnson Space Center before becoming its director. Wyche is the third woman to lead NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Early in her career, Wyche would often be the only female engineer in meetings. There weren’t many people of color, either.

Now, NASA’s Artemis program is preparing to land the first woman and person of color on the moon. Kathy Lueders is head of the agency’s human spaceflight initiatives, Holly Ridings is in charge of the flight director team that directs human spaceflight missions, Janet Petro is director of the Kennedy Space Center where Artemis missions will be launched, and Wyche is director of the Johnson Space Center that trains astronauts.

“And of course, Artemis was Apollo’s twin sister,” Wyche said. “The thing is, all of the people that you named are extremely qualified for their positions and are the best of the best. And that’s really what’s important.”

STEM awareness

Still, most of NASA’s employees are white. Wyche outlined three ways she can help the Johnson Space Center continue to increase its diversity.

The first tactic is making sure students are aware of STEM careers. NASA works with students of all ages, and it partners with the Texas State Legislature and Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for its Texas High School Aerospace Scholars program, where students complete an online curriculum and then (during non-COVID times) would come to the Johnson Space Center for hands-on work.