Beth Schmid
Headquarters, Washington, DC                    May 19, 1999
(Phone:  202/358-1760)

RELEASE:  99-62

KATHIE L. OLSEN SELECTED AS NASA CHIEF SCIENTIST

    NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin selected a biologist, 
Dr. Kathie L. Olsen of the National Science Foundation, as 
the space agency's chief scientist, effective May 24.

     Olsen will be the Administrator's senior scientific 
advisor and principal interface with the national and 
international scientific community.  She will be responsible 
for ensuring that NASA programs are universally regarded as 
scientifically and technologically valid.  She also will act 
as principal advisor to the Administrator on the budget 
content of NASA's science programs.  Olsen will place special 
emphasis on the biological sciences, particularly biomedical, 
neuroscience and life sciences.

     "NASA's Chief Scientist has a tremendous responsibility 
to represent the Agency's scientific objectives to the 
outside world, including other federal agencies, industry, 
academia, governmental organizations and the international 
community," Goldin said.  "Dr. Olsen is a highly motivated 
and scientifically focused individual, whose expertise both 
inside and outside the Agency will serve us well.  I am 
pleased she has agreed to accept this position."

     Olsen has most recently been a senior staff associate in 
the National Science Foundation's Office of Integrative 
Activities since December 1998.  She held numerous other 
science-related positions within the Foundation dating back 
to 1984.

     Among Olsen's many awards, she earned the National 
Science Foundation Director's Superior Accomplishment Award 
and the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society's award 
for important contributions in that field.  

     Olsen received her Ph.D. in psychobiology/neuroscience 
at the University of California at Irvine in 1979 and became 
a postdoctoral fellow at Children's Hospital of Harvard 
Medical School in 1979 and 1980.  She then spent eight years 
in various teaching and research positions at the State 
University of New York - Stony Brook.

     Olsen resides in Arlington, VA.

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