Carolyn Turner is the NASA Mishap Program executive in the Mishap Prevention and Organizational Performance Office at the NASA Safety Center. In this role, she provides advice, support and oversight for NASA mishap investigations.
Prior to this role, Turner was the deputy for Ground Safety at Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, where she managed a comprehensive safety program for ground operations and institutional projects. Significant programs included suborbital and orbital Expendable Launch Vehicle carriers, small satellites, manned and unmanned aircraft, and infrastructure. Before joining the Safety Office, she served as the associate chief for the Medical and Environmental Management Division at Goddard, where she was responsible for comprehensive and integrated center environmental compliance, restoration, occupational medical, sustainability and wellness programs. She also completed a detail as the deputy program manager for Institutional Safety and Mishap Investigation programs in NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance.
She has over 30 years of experience in safety and environmental engineering, having managed programs for the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and several Fortune 500 corporations in the private sector.
Turner holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science from the State University of New York. She completed a post-graduate study while serving as a senior research associate at the University of California Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In addition, she is certified in the NASA Human Factors Analysis and Classifications System and a graduate of the Excellence in Government Fellows Program in Partnership for Public Service. She also was a training team member for the National Transportation Safety Board Aircraft Accident Investigation team.
