Name: Malika Graham
Title: Procurement Acquisition Manager
Formal Job Classification: Senior Contract Specialist
Organization: Procurement (Code 210Y)
What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? How do you help support Goddard’s mission?
Recently, I began supporting the Mars Sample Return (MSR) Capture, Containment and Return System (CCRS) Project as the procurement acquisition manager. I am responsible for the oversight of all CCRS procurement activities, ensuring the execution of procurements align with project and program needs. What is most interesting about my role is that I am supporting an unprecedented mission. While lunar samples, comet and asteroid samples have been collected and returned to Earth, no mission has ever gathered a sample from a planet and returned it to Earth.
How does it feel to be working on a project going to Mars?
Being part of the agency’s campaign to bring samples of Mars to Earth is professionally rewarding and tremendously cool. Twenty years after the first U.S. landing, the Perseverance rover is on Mars and attempting to collect and return the first samples in history from another planet. The Capture, Containment and Return System will be a component of the Earth Return Orbiter and in 2026, the third launch in the Mars Sample Return campaign. Procurement directly enables this mission, and I feel a great deal of responsibility as I support the needs of the project.
What leadership skills do you think are important, as both a team lead and a team member?
As the procurement lead on an interdisciplinary project team, I think that it is most important for a team lead to understand their role, be proactive, communicate clearly, and problem solve with agility. As flight projects are subject to schedule-driven project management, it is also important to execute with an awareness of schedule constraints. The same leadership skills are important for all team members. Additionally, authenticity is a valued quality that will contribute to an employee’s success irrespective of position.
Who is the most amazing person you have met at Goddard?
Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting NASA astronaut and engineer Stephanie Wilson. Stephanie Wilson has flown to the International Space Station three times and she is among the 18 astronauts on the Artemis team; she could become the first woman to walk on the Moon!
Who is your favorite author?
Toni Morrison would have to be my favorite author based on the number of times I have re-read her books during different phases of my life.
What was the last book that you have read?
The last book that I read was “You are Your Best Thing” by Tarana Burke and Brene Brown, an anthology of essays on vulnerability, shame, and resilience.
What is your “six-word memoir”? A six-word memoir describes something in just six words.
Inspired: vivid dreams come to life.
By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of question-and-answer profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.