“I came to NASA by total happenstance in 2007 following a career in corporate financial management. When the company was bought out, I did what any grown man would do—I moved to Paris while I figured out my next steps in life. When I returned, a former colleague—and future boss—contacted me and asked me to apply for a position at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Of course, I thought she was crazy, but I applied and got the job supporting lifecycle reviews in the Constellation Program. Believe it or not, the transfer from corporate financial management to engineering lifecycle reviews was not a huge leap.
“In 2008, I moved to Washington, D.C. for a position in HEO’s Programmatic and Strategic Integration office at NASA Headquarters. In late 2012, I made the biggest—and best—decision of my life: marrying my husband and moving with him to Germany. Growing up, it was never even in my vocabulary that I’d be able to marry the person I loved, and there I was, doing just that and taking this great adventure with him to start our lives together.
“When my husband’s contract ended in Germany, we moved back to the states and I found my way back to NASA. This time, I worked in the External Relations Office at JSC for a couple of years before going back to the programmatic work that I continue to do today in the Human Exploration and Operations Systems Engineering and Integration Office at NASA Headquarters.
“If I had to summarize what I do, it’s ‘keeping the trains running and on time.’ In the world of human spaceflight, there’s a lot of reporting, which keeps me busy and engaged. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a handful of amazing mentors who have literally changed the course of my life. I’m second generation American, the first in my family to go to university, and here I am married, working at NASA, and learning something new every day. Go figure.”
—Stratis Catacalos, Portfolio Integration Lead, Systems Engineering and Integration, Human Exploration and Operations, NASA Headquarters
Image Credit: NASA / Norah Moran
Interviewer: NASA / Erin Mahoney