Betsy Pugel
Dr. Diane (Betsy) Pugel is the Planetary Protection/Containment Control Engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.
As the Deputy Instrument Project Manager and then Project Manager for the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer Mass Spectrometer (MOMA-MS), she was fully immersed in life-detection and planetary protection, which led her to NASA Headquarters, where she recently served for five years as the Deputy Planetary Protection Officer for the agency. While at Headquarters, she oversaw planetary protection compliance for 30+ missions in the Planetary Science Division portfolio, including InSight and its cubesat secondary payloads, Mars Cubesat One (MarCO).
She has written over 16 refereed publications and coauthored a chapter on Ultraviolet devices. She is a past recipient of the Women in Aerospace Achievement Award . Dr. Pugel received her Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics at the University of Maryland.