Meet Christine

Currently, Dr. Christine C. Moran is an Engineering Manager for the Data Pipeline at Planet Labs, working to combat climate change and promote political stability and prosperity by imaging the Earth. Until August of 2022, Dr. Christine C. Moran was the Deputy Program Manager for the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She earned two Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT in Physics and Computer Science & Engineering and her Master’s and Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Zurich. She also holds a Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine. In the Caltech/JPL community, Dr. Moran first served as an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow (NSF AAPF) at Caltech in the Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity and Cosmology (TAPIR) group. At JPL she most recently served as the Group Supervisor in the Cyber Defense Engineering and Research Group and in the M2020 Engineering Cameras operations team as a Payload Downlink Lead. Before joining JPL, Dr. Moran worked in the propulsion group at SpaceX and served at the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica as a Winter-over scientist with the University of Chicago. She has authored or co-authored 24 publications and proceedings, held foundational roles at three successful startups, and has extensive experience as a public speaker and writer.