Tara Ruttley Biography

The Chief Scientist for the Orbital Reef at Blue Origin is Tara Ruttley, Ph.D. Previously, Ruttley worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters in Washington, D.C., as the associate chief scientist for Microgravity Research. She graduated from Colorado State University with a mechanical engineering master's degree and a biology bachelor's degree, combining her passion for biology with human spaceflight. She started working for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in 2001 after earning her master's degree when she was employed as a biomedical engineer for the medical hardware and human research hardware used on the ISS. She joined the ISS Program Research Office, where she spent over a decade actively leading, reviewing, and disseminating ISS science operations until coming to NASA Headquarters in 2019. She simultaneously worked as an engineer and sought her Ph.D. in neuroscience. Having just earned a master's degree in anthropology-archaeology from the University of Houston, where her thesis focused on the role of religion in slavery and social control on American plantations before the Civil War, Ruttley has a wide range of scholarly interests. Ruttley is the owner of a U.S. utility patent and has written articles on anything from hardware design to neurological research. Ruttley is a vibrant, personable, down-to-earth speaker who is also a lot of fun to chat to. She has almost ten years of experience making media appearances and has addressed audiences ranging from students to career scientists and business executives with humorous, educational, leadership-focused, and inspirational keynote speeches.

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