Holly Ridings

Holly Ridings is the Director of the Exploration Operations Office. She previously served as the Gateway Deputy Program Manager and became NASA’s first female chief flight director in 2018, leading NASA human spaceflight operations through the first commercial crew missions to the International Space Station and the preparation for the Artemis I mission. Over the course of her career in human spaceflight operations, she has spent thousands of hours in Mission Control supporting the assembly and operations of the space station. She led several key operational milestones in human spaceflight including the first commercial cargo spacecraft mission to the space station in 2012. Ms. Ridings began her NASA career in 1997 at the Goddard Space Flight Center before becoming a flight controller in NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston, where she led various teams supporting the International Space Station. A native of Amarillo, Texas, Ridings earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University.