Peggy S. Hayes
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Enterprise Risk Manager
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Peggy S. Hayes is the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) enterprise risk manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Hayes accepted the yearlong detail in June 2024 and is responsible for managing risk related to the strategic, program, project, institutional, and acquisition functions of ARMD and assists in tracking project lifecycle key decision points for agency ARMD programs and projects. Since 2017, Hayes has also worked as the risk manager for NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
Experience
Previously, Hayes was acting director for Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) at NASA Armstrong. Appointed to the position in December 2023, she was responsible for the management and technical direction of the center’s safety and mission assurance programs. Hayes originally joined S&MA as its deputy director in 2016.
In 2014, Hayes worked as the deputy chief systems engineer for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System project. From 2005 to 2012, she was the flight dynamics lead for the Flight Test Office for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Pad Abort-1 (PA-1) flight test. As part of the PA-1 launch team, Hayes narrated the successful flight test in White Sands, New Mexico, for live coverage of the flight test. Starting in 2001, Hayes worked on the Intelligent Flight Control System and was responsible for the handling and flying capabilities, reconfiguring the neural-network-based controller that assists a pilot when aircraft is damaged or had structural failures.
Hayes began her career at NASA Armstrong in 1999 as a flight dynamics and controls engineer working on the X-33 and X-34 projects, performing analysis and verification and validation of the software simulation for both vehicles.
Education
Before coming to NASA, Hayes was a high school teacher for physical science, mathematics astronomy, and computer programming in Marietta, Georgia. She earned a Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Master of Science in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.