Space Conference Speaker

Kelly manages the portfolio of projects that find, track, and characterize asteroids and comets and conduct impact mitigation research. She also serves as the Coordinating Officer for the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) as part of NASA’s coordination role for the United Nations-recommended collaboration. Dr. Fast previously led NASA’s Solar System Observations, Planetary Astronomy and Planetary Atmospheres research programs and she served as Program Scientist for the MAVEN mission to Mars. She investigated atmospheric chemistry on Mars, winds on Titan, and the effects on Jupiter’s stratosphere of small body impacts as an astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center before coming to NASA Headquarters in 2011. Dr. Fast earned her B.S. in Astrophysics from UCLA and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Maryland.