December 2024 Transformer of the Month: Jill Marlowe

[NASA]

If Digital Transformation were a ship, the vessel for delivering on our missions and ensuring smooth passage into the future, our final Digital Transformer of 2024 would be the captain. Growing up sailing with her father on the Chesapeake Bay, this transformer developed the navigation skills she now uses at NASA “with both clarity and precision, much like a sailor who understands the subtle shifts in the wind,” says Christina Haymes, DT Enterprise Integration Architect. “She knows how to watch the sea to find the invisible breeze,” notes Patrick Murphy, DT Portfolio Manager. “I admire how she operates as a leader both in calm and troubling seas to get us where we want to be.” Vision and leadership are just two of the many reasons why our December Digital Transformer, Jill Marlowe, stands at the helm of our ever-evolving journey. 

Jill has dedicated over three decades to her career at NASA, starting as an engineer and evolving into her position as the Digital Transformation Officer. Her early sailing experiences led her to pursue ocean and aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech; an innate passion for continual growth led to subsequent master’s degrees in mechanical, civil, and environmental engineering. As Jill moved into leadership positions across NASA’s engineering organizations, divisions, and directorates, she realized that the technology she was instinctively using to transform her work could also help the agency overcome a wider range of challenges. 

Her keen eye for cross-cutting solutions perfectly positioned her for the dynamic role of Digital Transformation Officer, diving into technical problems with engineers one day and strategizing with senior executives the next. Although she brings a rigorous technical background to the role, Jill most enjoys the creative and collaborative aspects. “It really gives me an opportunity to engage with a lot of earlier career folks who often are bringing some of these digital ideas into our workplace,” she says. “To me, it’s a very generative role, and that’s what I like the best about it.”  

Jill commits to practicing what she preaches, strategically leveraging tools like Microsoft Teams and other M365 applications to build a culture of digital innovation and influence others to join the movement. Krista Kinnard, DT Culture and Communications Lead, says, “We work in a digital world with new tools that make our lives easier. Jill has really shown how the way we interact with each other matters and can be streamlined to drive our team to success.” Jill’s growth-oriented mindset drives her to stay on the cutting edge of new capabilities—always with the goal of enabling mission outcomes and increasing our capacity for partnership. 

When times are challenging, people want heroes. I think a lot of what NASA does is bring humanity together.

Jill Marlowe

Digital Transformation Officer

Jill’s fervent belief in the power of collaboration is evident in the way she talks about her technical work, particularly with Digital Engineering (DE). “I am very excited about where we are with digital engineering at NASA and the progress Terry Hill and his team have made [toward] a unified engineering community,” says Jill. Through seed funding and ongoing support, Jill and the DT team grew Digital Engineering at NASA from initial prototype tests to an operationalized program within the Office of the Chief Engineer. In addition to the community’s alignment around a shared vision, Jill is proud of the team’s quantitative achievements in developing systems, tools, and approaches for digitalizing the engineering processes and adopting a common toolchain. “I feel like we’ve been talking about those kinds of ideas my entire career, and we’re this close to having this in the hands of the engineers across NASA so they can work together and with our partners in ways that we haven’t been able to before” 

For Jill, the measure of DT’s success lies in the ability to enable more complex missions, collaborate more seamlessly with partners, and build more resilient systems that prepare us for the future. Under her leadership, DT facilitated the maturation of NASA Mission Cloud, a digital solution for capturing mission capability requirements and defining technology needs. In FY24, DT launched the new IT Modernization for Transformation (ITMX) fund and curated a $10M portfolio of enterprise solutions in data interoperability, federated search, digital engineering, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and more. By championing Digital Transformation at NASA and demonstrating its value, Jill paved the way for solutions that accelerate discovery and mission delivery.  

Over her career, Jill forged bonds, championed innovation, and positioned the agency to leverage the ripple effects of her work long after her upcoming retirement in December. Her legacy, however, might be best summarized by the way she made people feel. “It sounds simple, but so many people are listening to respond, whereas Jill is listening to understand,” Krista says. The rest of DT leadership echoes this sentiment. “Jill has a deep knowledge of NASA and has built strong relationships across the agency. Most of all, I value her mentorship and friendship,” says Christina. Patrick puts it simply: “Collaborating with Jill is a joy.” 

As she reflects on her time at the agency, Jill shares inspiring aspirations for NASA’s future and DT’s ability to carry us on that voyage. “When times are challenging, people want heroes. I think a lot of what NASA does is bring humanity together. When I think about those big expectations on NASA for the future and the technology that’s coming along that can make those dreams come true…it literally gives me chills.” She continues, “I encourage the continued community around Digital Transformation, the continued quest to find shared solutions to common challenges. Because I really do think that’s the way we’re going to get there from here.” 

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