Technical Fellow Non-Destructive Evaluation The Technical Fellow Non-Destructive Evaluation: Serves as the Agency's authoritative technical resource in Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE), applying advanced engineering theory and operational expertise, frequently leading teams and providing the technical foundation for evaluating and reducing mission risk. Provides Agency-wide technical leadership and collaboration in NDE, leading independent assessments and partnering with recognized researchers and engineers across NASA centers, academia, national laboratories, industry, and the Department of Defense to conduct and sponsor work that informs NDE mission risk. Communicates and fosters NDE knowledge, publishing engineering findings through NASA channels, journals, seminars, NESC Academy courses, or domestic/international universities; serve as an invited presenter at conferences and promote participation in engineering academies. Provides senior technical leadership for independent technical reviews, serving as the national/international expert in NDE.Establishes, leads, and stewards a Technical Discipline Team (TDT) of the Agency's foremost NDE experts, and augmenting by external specialists-to support independent assessments and ensure discipline stewardship across NASA.Applies advanced NDE methodologies using non damaging interrogating energy-such as sound, heat, X rays, microwaves, optical, and Terahertz radiation-to characterize material properties, detect damage, and assess the integrity of aerospace materials, structures, and systems. Develops, adapts, and customizes NDE techniques to accommodate complex material types, specialized structural geometries, and unique flight components used across NASA missions, ensuring accurate, reliable, and mission appropriate inspection results. Provides authoritative technical expertise and leadership across the full spectrum of NDE subdisciplines, including dye penetrant, magnetic particle, ultrasonic, acoustic emission, radiographic, thermographic, optical, and electromagnetic methods, as applied to metallic and composite aerospace structures. Leads Agency-wide NDE discipline stewardship activities, including technical workshops, knowledge-sharing forums, identification and cataloging of critical skills and facilities, assessment of emerging technical challenges, and periodic reporting of discipline health, capability, and risk to Agency leadership.
