Bhavya Lal is the former Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy, and Strategy at NASA, where she provided evidence-driven advice to NASA leadership on policy, strategic planning, and technology investments. Additionally, Dr. Lal served as the acting Chief Technologist of NASA, becoming the first woman to hold this position in the agency’s history.

Prior to her NASA appointment, she spent 15 years at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), leading strategy, technology assessment, and policy analyses. Before that, she was Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Studies at Abt Associates, a global policy research and consulting firm in Cambridge, MA.

Dr. Lal is an active leader in the space technology and policy community, having chaired, co-chaired, or served on six high-impact National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committees. She also served two consecutive terms on NOAA’s Federal Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing (ACCRES) and was selected to join NASA’s Technology, Innovation, and Engineering Advisory Committee (NAC/TIE). Currently, she serves on the boards of Explore Mars and the NASA NIAC program and chairs the IAF Space Economy Committee, among other advisory roles.

For her outstanding contributions to astronautics, Dr. Lal has been awarded NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal—the agency’s highest honor—elected as a Member ("Academician") of the International Academy of Astronautics, named an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and received the AIAA Public Service Award.