Dan Cristian Chirica
Project Specialist
Contents
Affiliation: NASA Ames Research Center (ARC)
Branch: Earth Science Project Office (SGP)
Email: Dan.Chirica@nasa.gov
Professional Biography
Dan joined ESPO in January 2006, initially focusing on the IT Infrastructure required for ESPO projects. Dan has supported projects in locations ranging from as far north as Thule Space Force Base, Greenland to as far south as Punta Arenas, Chile, and many latitudes in between. Over the years Dan contributed to 35+ projects starting with CR-AVE (2006). More recently he is focused on managing DCOTSS, an Earth Venture Suborbital-3 project (Salina, KS), BioSCape (Cape Town, S. Africa), and ARCSIX (Pituffik, Greenland).
A native of Romania, Dan is a consummate troubleshooter with a broad knowledge of IT and electrical systems. Some of his lesser-known skills include sewing (backpacks, down jackets, sleeping bags, bike panniers, gloves) and metalworking (knives, ice ax, crampons, liquid fuel camping stove). He has been known to fix a door lock with a Leatherman.
When not at work or on work travel one can find Dan hiking or biking the hills of Livermore accompanied by his COVID puppy, Jana (a stunning Irish Setter), watching (and chauffeuring for) high school Water Polo games, or skiing in the Sierras.
Education
BA Computer Science, 2001, Oregon State University
MS Software Engineering, 2006, California State University (East Bay)
Awards/Honors
2022 – – NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal
Recipient of 37 NASA Group Achievement Awards