NASA names permanent CIO
Acting tech chief Jeff Seaton takes over as NASA CIO as part of a spate of leadership changes.
NASA has elevated acting CIO Jeff Seaton to the post of permanent CIO. The change was announced in a Jan. 13 email to staff.
Seaton has served as the space agency's deputy CIO and before that was CIO of NASA's Langley Research Center from 2011 to 2018. Seaton was also CTO at Langley before moving to the CIO post there. He joined the agency in 1991 as an engineer.
Seaton takes over as NASA's CIO shop is struggling to implement the control over enterprisewide technology spending mandated in the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act legislation. The agency recently scored an F grade in the CIO authorities section of the biannual FITARA report card. An August 2020 report from NASA's Office of Inspector General found that the agency had issues policing shadow IT devices connected to agency networks.
The agency is slated to spend $2.2 billion on IT in fiscal year 2021.
NASA also announced that Mike Gold, who joined the agency in 2019, will serve as associate administrator for space policy; Karla Smith Jackson was tapped for the role of assistant administrator for procurement; and Karen Feldstein will be associate administrator for international and interagency relations.