Missions & Leadership
I've led or contributed to five NASA flight missions since 2011 — from concept development through launch and operations — and support national security space coordination. Each has involved building software systems, leading cross-organizational teams, making high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, and representing NASA's interests with partners and contractors.
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
Operations Project Scientist
Primary Project Science Office point of contact for the Science Operations Center of NASA's next astrophysics flagship — a $4.3B wide-field infrared survey observatory targeting launch in late 2026. Project Science lead for the definition of Roman's Core Community Surveys (~75% of the first 5 years of operations), serve as Government Witness for SOC acceptance testing, and act as PI for multiple commissioning activities. Founded the Roman Community Forum and the Roman Technical Information GitHub repository.
Pandora SmallSat
Deputy Project Scientist & SOC Lead
Led Science Operations Center development end-to-end — architecture design, interface control documents, and flight planning software — for this Astrophysics Pioneers Program mission studying stellar contamination of exoplanet spectra. Responsible for the development of the observation scheduling systems. Guided the mission through CDR, FRR, ORR, and successful launch on January 11, 2026 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. Currently supporting science operations.
ULTRASAT
Participating Scientist
Contributing to NASA's participation in the Israeli-led Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite, a wide-field UV space telescope that will survey the transient sky. ULTRASAT will detect stellar explosions, merging neutron stars, and other time-domain events in the ultraviolet.
TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)
Associate Project Scientist & GI Program Director
Served as Associate Project Scientist and founded the Guest Investigator Program, managing community access to TESS data and observations. Led the program through development and its primary mission phase, supporting hundreds of investigators worldwide. Co-led the discovery of TESS's first habitable-zone Earth-sized planet (TOI-700 d).
Kepler & K2
Guest Observer Office Director
Joined the Kepler mission at NASA Ames Research Center as a research scientist; promoted to Director of the Kepler/K2 Guest Observer Office in 2014. Led a team developing proposal calls, organizing reviews, and building community analysis software. Part of the small team that pioneered the K2 mission after loss of spacecraft fine pointing control. Served on the science and mission leadership teams.
Open Source Software
I've shipped production Python packages across four NASA missions — from observation schedulers and visibility tools to data analysis frameworks used by thousands. 94 repositories on GitHub, contributor to 4 NASA organizations.
Pandora SmallSat
Flight Planning LeadI lead flight planning software for NASA's Pandora SmallSat. I managed the observation scheduling and target visibility tools that determine what the spacecraft observes and when — parsing observation calendars, computing observability windows against orbital constraints, and generating command products.
Lightkurve
★ 380+ · 1,200+ citationsCore developer of the standard Python package for analyzing time-series data from NASA's Kepler, K2, and TESS missions. Used by thousands of researchers worldwide. Features aperture photometry, systematics correction via linear algebra and Gaussian Processes, periodogram analysis, and pixel-level diagnostics.
Kepler/K2 Community Tools
★ 119 (pyke)Led development of the KeplerGO software suite — the official community tools for NASA's Kepler and K2 missions. Includes data reduction pipelines, field-of-view calculators, target pixel file animators, and publication tracking databases. Used by hundreds of astronomers for proposal preparation and data analysis.
Selected Work
Over 150 refereed publications with 31,000+ citations (Google Scholar). Selected papers below highlight signal detection, statistical modeling, simulation, and open-source software.
The Pandora SmallSat: A Low-Cost, High Impact Mission
First-author paper describing the end-to-end design, simulation tools, and management approach for the Pandora mission. Covers how the team built high-fidelity parameterized simulation and modeling tools to estimate performance, and how disruptive agile management delivered a 0.44 m space telescope on a SmallSat budget.
Barclay, Quintana, Colón et al. →A Sub-Mercury-Sized Exoplanet (Kepler-37b)
Detected the smallest known planet by extracting an exoplanet transit signal with a depth of just 20 parts per million from noisy photometric data. Used asteroseismology to precisely characterize the host star and constrain the planet radius to smaller than Mercury.
Barclay, Rowe, Lissauer et al. →Predicting TESS Exoplanet Yields via Simulation
Built a large-scale Monte Carlo simulation of the TESS mission — synthesizing stellar populations, injecting planetary signals, and modeling detection pipelines — to predict the mission's planet yield. Predictions accurately matched actual discoveries years later.
Barclay, Pepper & Quintana →TESS's First Habitable-Zone Earth-Sized Planet
Co-led the discovery and statistical validation of TOI-700 d, a 1.19 R⊕ planet receiving 86% of Earth's insolation. Combined multi-sector time-series analysis, Bayesian false-positive probability calculations, and ground-based follow-up to confirm the detection.
Gilbert, Barclay, Schlieder et al. →First Earth-Sized Planet in the Habitable Zone
Co-discovered Kepler-186f, a 1.1 R⊕ planet in the habitable zone of an M dwarf — proof that Earth-sized worlds exist where liquid water is possible. Required distinguishing a genuine signal from correlated noise in 4 years of photometry.
Quintana, Barclay, Raymond et al. →Oldest Known Terrestrial Planet System
Discovered Kepler-444, a system of five sub-Earth-sized planets orbiting an 11.2-billion-year-old star. Applied asteroseismic age-dating (Bayesian stellar modeling) to show Earth-sized worlds have formed throughout most of cosmic history.
Campante, Barclay, Swift et al. →About
I'm an astrophysicist and mission operations leader at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, where I've been a civil servant since 2023. Before that I was a research scientist at UMBC/NASA (2017–2023) and at the BAER Institute/NASA Ames (2011–2017).
My day-to-day work focuses on the boundary between science and engineering — translating what astronomers need from a space telescope into the operational systems, survey designs, and planning software that make it happen. On Roman that means defining the mission's largest survey programs and ensuring the ground system can execute them; on Pandora it meant building the operations center from scratch and carrying it through launch.
My career spans the full space mission lifecycle — from proposal writing and requirements definition, through hardware I&T and launch, to operations and data analysis. I've led cross-organizational teams across NASA centers, contractors, and international partners. I also write production Python, build scheduling and planning tools, and have shipped open-source software across four NASA missions including Lightkurve (1,200+ citations).
My career spans the full space mission lifecycle — from proposal writing and requirements definition, through hardware I&T and launch, to operations and data analysis. I've led cross-organizational teams across NASA centers, contractors, and international partners. I also write production Python, build scheduling and planning tools, and have shipped open-source software across four NASA missions including Lightkurve (1,200+ citations).
I grew up in Sheffield, England. BSc Physics with Astrophysics, University of Leeds (2006); MSc, University of Manchester / Jodrell Bank (2007); PhD, University College London / Armagh Observatory (2011).
Awards & Selections
- IEEE Aerospace Conference, Best Paper in Track (2025) — for "The Pandora SmallSat: A Low-Cost, High Impact Mission to Study Exoplanets and Their Host Stars"
- NASA NEXT Program (2025) — selected for NASA's leadership development program
- NASA Early Career Achievement Medal (2022)
- ASD Peer Award (2019)
- NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal (2017)
Core Competencies
Signal Detection & Time Series
Extracting weak, periodic, or transient signals from noisy, high-dimensional data. Transit detection, anomaly identification, and systematics modeling in multi-year photometric datasets.
Bayesian Inference & Modeling
MCMC, nested sampling, Gaussian Processes, hierarchical models. Designing probabilistic frameworks for parameter estimation and model comparison under uncertainty.
Python & Production Software
Shipped 12+ open-source Python packages across 4 NASA missions. Core developer of Lightkurve (1,200+ citations). Deep experience with NumPy, SciPy, pandas, scikit-learn, Poetry, CI/CD, and test-driven development.
Technical Program Leadership
End-to-end management of complex technical programs: requirements, milestones, risk, and cross-functional coordination across engineering, science, and operations teams of 50–200 people.
Simulation & Prediction
Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations to forecast mission performance. Population synthesis, injection-recovery testing, and forward modeling of instrument response.
Evaluation & Benchmarking
Designed evaluation frameworks and ran multi-year competitive review programs for three NASA missions. Built injection-recovery test pipelines, developed assessment rubrics, and made resource allocation decisions under competing priorities.
Strategic Focus Areas
Flagship Mission Operations
Ensuring Roman's science operations succeed from commissioning through routine observations. Translating complex mission requirements into operational systems that serve thousands of astronomers while meeting NASA's strategic objectives.
National Security Space
Applying mission operations expertise and technical leadership to national security space challenges. Experienced in classified coordination, inter-agency engagement, and bridging the gap between science missions and defense applications.
Next-Generation Mission Architecture
Shaping how future missions — from flagships to SmallSats — structure community engagement, operations models, and multi-center coordination. Contributing to strategic planning for NASA's astrophysics portfolio and the Habitable Worlds Observatory.
Cross-Organizational Technical Leadership
Leading teams across organizational boundaries — NASA centers, contractors, international partners — through ambiguous, high-stakes technical programs. Building consensus among stakeholders with competing priorities.