IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2023 - 21

project to fly a constellation of spacecraft,
with the goal of designing the constellation
as opposed to physically building nodes
and deploying it. Gizzi is PI and lead of the
fault-mitigation team, and she describes
the project as " a team of PIs that all got
squished together to build a swarm of satellites
for deep space remote sensing and
observation of planetary bodies. " The idea is
to take what they developed for RAISR and
translate it to a multiagent system.
Gizzi is in the process of handing
off some of this work to other portions
of the team. Two of her leads are taking
RAISR on as a platform, open sourcing it,
and turning it over to the research community
to develop. " We have a platform
for development but we are also trying
to deploy it to a satellite next year so
the research community can also have
access to it and the opportunity to deploy
experiments. We're pushing for that collaborativeness
and partnerships, " Gizzi
says. " We want to explore new business
models outside of what government has
typically done. "
The Future
" I love change; I thrive in the face of
change, so the fact that I've been with
the same organization for five to six
years is super inconsistent with how I
do everything else in my life, "
Gizzi shares of her time
at NASA.
It's not too surprising,
however.
She's a natural fit
there, and she has
always felt supported
and accepted.
Darryl Mitchell,
chief of strategic partnerships
a nd one o f
Gizzi 's strongest advocates
and mentors, has been working
closely with her for the last few years on
the initiative to explore new col laborations
and partnerships.
She calls Michael Johnson, chief technologist
for engineering and head of the
Gizzi with Dr. Karen Panetta and Dr. Jivko Sinapov, her Ph.D. advisor at Tufts
University.
cross-cutting technologies capabilities
line of business, " kind of an unsung hero
at NASA, unbelievably humble and unbelievably
intelligent. "
" We want
to explore new
business models
outside of what
government has
typically done. "
" He supports the early-career folks
like no other, " Gizzi says. " If I
have to give credit to one
person for empowering
me in my career, it's
him. I think it's important
to have somebody
a little higher than
you to believe in you.
I can talk to him about
anything. Especially
being a female, having
someone like that where
all bets are off and you can
completely express what's going on
and be raw about it, having an advocate and
having that support system really empowers
you, takes you out of the victim mentality.
Having someone, especially a male
advocate, sends such a strong message. "
JUNE 2023
Dr. James Marshall, she offers, " is almost
more of an advocate for women than
I am, " and she credits him with helping
her know how to advocate for herself.
Overall, " people are extremely respectful
of each other, " she says. " They never
imply that they are better than you, regardless
of their level. "
Gizzi has plans for what she'd like to
accomplish at NASA, and that includes
continuing her groundbreaking work in
AI as well as looking to build and expand
strategic partnerships in her home state
of Massachusetts.
" Within the organization, being able to
innovate and break down barriers is what
I love about being there. It's a government
organization but you have access to some
of the coolest applications. We have internal
research money and we can pitch some
of the wildest stuff, " she says.
-Katianne Williams
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
21
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2023

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