Michael Gazarik Faculty Director, Engineering Management Program University of Colorado-Boulder

Dr. Mike Gazarik has over 30 years of experience in the design, development, and deployment of spaceflight systems. Currently he serves as the Faculty Director of the Engineering Management Program for the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado. He is also a part-time Staff Member at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. He led the creation of the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters and served as the first Associate Administrator championing NASA’s rapid development and incorporation of transformative technologies that enable the Agency’s missions and address the Nation’s aerospace community’s most difficult challenges. Joining Ball Aerospace in 2015, Mike served over 8 years as the Vice President of Engineering providing overall strategic and operational leadership of engineering, program execution, and technology. He led the organization through an accelerated growth period doubling the size of the organization and company in five years.

Earlier in his career, Gazarik served as the acting director of the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center and led programs developing an infrared camera for on-orbit shuttle inspections and entry, descent and landing instrumentation for the Curiosity and Perseverance mars missions. Prior to joining NASA, Gazarik served as project manager for the Geosynchronous Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory. Gazarik also worked in the private sector on software and firmware development for commercial and government applications including telecommunications and signal processing.

Gazarik understands that diverse teams develop better solutions. Under his leadership, engineering at Ball Aerospace saw a marked increase in diversity at all levels of the organization. He served as an executive sponsor for the LGBTA and Latinx Ball Resource Networks.

Gazarik earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1987 and was a General Motors Scholar. He earned an M.S. in 1989 and a Ph.D. in 1997, both in electrical engineering, from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the AIAA and former Chair of the AIAA Corporate Strategic Committee. He is a member of the Engineering Advisory Board for the University of Colorado’s Engineering College and the Engineering Management Program. Gazarik was elected to the AIAA Board of Trustees in 2025, serves as a board member for the Space Sciences Institute, and formerly for Astroscale U.S., and Astrobotic Technology Inc. He also serves on the NASA Advisory Committee for Technology and Innovation and supported the Department of Defense Study on STEM and the Defense Industrial Base.

Gazarik has received numerous awards, including NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal, a Silver Snoopy Award, one of NASA’s highest honors, received the 2023 AIAA Rocky Mountain Section Educator of the Year award, selected as the 2023 Engineering Manager of the Year by the American Society of Engineering Management, and was selected as a Distinguished Alumni from the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering in 2018. He was a leader in Boy Scouts of America, coached and refereed youth lacrosse, and led the development of lacrosse programs in the Hampton Roads area.