Dr. Jeffrey Sheehy is chief engineer of the Space Technology Mission Directorate.  He holds a Ph.D. in chemical physics and has over 25 years of experience in space technology research, development, and demonstration. 

He has led research and development projects related to high energy density chemical propellants, plasma propulsion, astrophysics, materials science, and spacecraft thermal protection at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 

He was deputy chief engineer at NASA for the Orion Launch Abort System from project inception through the Pad Abort 1 flight test, and he has overseen several spaceflight demonstration projects on a wide range of technologies as program and mission directorate chief engineer. 

He is author or co-author of more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as five book chapters and 30 technical reports.