People Category: Webinars

Dr. Christyl Johnson is Goddard’s deputy center director for technology and research investments. She manages the center’s research and development portfolio, and is responsible for formulating the center’s future science mission and technology goals and objectives, and leading an integrated program of investments aligned to meet those goals.

Christyl Johnson joined Goddard as deputy center director for science and technology on Dec. 6, 2010. In July 2012 then-Goddard Center Director Chris Scolese reorganized some of the responsibilities of the Goddard Executive Council, at which point Johnson assumed her role as deputy director for technology and research investments.

Johnson came to NASA Goddard from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she served under the President’s science adviser as the executive director of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), which is the principal means within the executive branch to coordinate science and technology policy across the Federal research and development enterprise. She was responsible for ensuring the establishment of clear national goals for Federal science and technology investments in a broad array of areas across the executive branch, including basic science, technology, energy, environment, natural resources, and homeland and national security.

Prior to joining the White House staff, Johnson served as the assistant associate administrator in NASA’s Office of the Administrator. In this role, she and the associate administrator provided the oversight of the agency’s technical mission areas and field center operations.

Johnson came to the Office of the Administrator from the Office of the Chief Engineer, where she served as the deputy chief engineer for program integration and operations. There, she provided an integrated focus for the development, maintenance, and implementation of agency engineering and program/project management policies, standards, and practices.

Prior to her appointment to the Office of the Chief Engineer, Johnson served as the associate director for exploratory missions in the Office of Earth Science, where she managed the formulation and development for all exploratory missions. The missions that she managed included QuikToms, GRACE, CLOUDSAT, Triana, AQUARIUS, HYDROS and OCO, and involved mission development activities at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center, Langley Research Center and several international and industry partners.

Johnson began her career at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., in 1985 in the Remote Sensing Technology Branch where she designed and built laser systems for advanced active remote sensors. In 1991, she became the program manager and lead engineer of the Diode-Pumped Cr:LiSAF Technology Development Program. In this role she established several initiatives, one of which was an industry and NASA collaboration to build an efficient Differential Absorption Lidar for remote sensing of water vapor. Under this program, Johnson delivered the first tunable diode-pumped Cr: LiSAF laser system to achieve 33 mJ. This achievement was highlighted internationally, and Johnson was invited to collaborate with scientists at Los Alamos National Labs, using this laser system for three weeks of field measurements in the desert of New Mexico. Johnson also established a state-of-the-art laboratory for stress optic coefficient measurement of laser crystals, and utilized this laboratory to provide the science community and laser industry with the first stress optic coefficients for the Cr:LiSAF laser material. Johnson held a variety of project management and senior engineering positions at Langley involved in the design, development and application of state-of-the-art and advanced systems and subsystems for atmospheric, aeronautic and space flight research missions.

Johnson earned her bachelor’s degree in physics from Lincoln University, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and a Ph.D. in systems engineering from George Washington University.

Zoe Steinkamp, a Developer Advocate for InfluxData, has a background in front-end software engineering. She is passionate about making developers’ lives easier and helping them engage with InfluxData’s database platform, open-source tools, and time-series data solutions. She also has a keen interest in data science. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling and gardening. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn, and she looks forward to sharing insights and knowledge at virtual and in-person events.

Daniel Kroboth is the Vice President of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite Operations for Eutelsat Group. His team is responsible for the design, development, and delivery of the Eutelsat-OneWeb’s Fleet Management Segment, including the Satellite Operations Center (SOC) hardware and software, and the Telemetry, Tracking, and Control (TT&C) Earth Stations. His organization is responsible for the control and monitoring of Eutelsat-OneWeb’s more than 650 operational spacecraft that provide worldwide broadband communication. He has spent over 25 years in the aerospace industry at various large heritage aerospace companies and tiny start-ups and participated in the development and operation of multiple technology demonstrator spacecraft from requirements definition, design, and manufacturing through integration and test, launch, and on-orbit operations. Mr. Kroboth joined OneWeb nine year ago to support the transition from a start-up of less than 40 people to today’s operational constellation. During this time, he has supported the design, development, manufacture, launch, and operation of the OneWeb system. Mr. Kroboth’s specialties include systems engineering, spacecraft flight software, spacecraft avionics, spacecraft automation, spacecraft ground systems, and on-orbit anomaly support. Mr. Kroboth has a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Anais Dotis-Georgiou is a Developer Advocate for InfluxData with a passion for making data beautiful with the use of Data Analytics, AI, and Machine Learning. She takes the data that she collects, does a mix of research, exploration, and engineering to translate the data into something of function, value, and beauty. When she is not behind a screen, you can find her outside drawing, stretching, boarding, or chasing after a soccer ball.

Balaji Palani is InfluxData’s Vice President of Product Marketing, overseeing the company’s product messaging and technical marketing. Balaji has an extensive background in monitoring, observability and developer technologies and bringing them to market. He previously served as InfluxData’s Senior Director of Product Management, and before that, held Product Management and Engineering positions at BMC, HP, and Mercury.