Dave Lavery (born May 28, 1959) is an American scientist and roboticist who is the Program Executive for

Solar System Exploration This is a timeline of Solar System exploration ordered by date of spacecraft launch. It includes: *All spacecraft that have left Earth orbit for the purposes of Solar System exploration (or were launched with that intention but failed), inclu ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

Headquarters. He also is a member of the ''FIRST'' Executive Advisory Board, and is well-known among participants of the

FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition. Each year, teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work during a six-week period to build robots capable of competing in that year's game that weig ...

as a mentor of Team 116.

Early life and education

From an early age, Lavery was obsessed with space exploration. With his eyesight being too poor to become an astronaut, he set about to use machines as his proxy for exploring the solar system. He attended

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six re ...

, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Computer Science.

Career

Lavery led NASA's Telerobotics Technology Development Program, responsible for the direction and oversight of robotics and planetary exploration within the organization. He and the program was responsible for the likes of the Mars Sojourner rover, which was the first rover he worked on, and the National Robotics Engineering Consortium. Lavery currently works at the NASA Headquarters in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, as the Program Executive for Solar System Explorations. He oversees and is heavily involved with the

Mars Exploration Rovers NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, ''Spirit (rover), Spirit'' and ''Opportunity (rover), Opportunity'', exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rover ...

. Notably, he oversaw the mission of the

Curiosity rover ''Curiosity'' is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Gale crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. ''Curiosity'' was launched from Cape Canaveral (CCAFS) on November 26, 2011, at 15:02:00 UTC and lan ...

in 2012. Lavery is also the project manager for NASAs' Robotics Alliance Project, a position he shared with fellow NASA scientist and ''FIRST'' Robotics participant

Mark Leon Mark Leon (1962 - 2018) was a former civil servant with NASA Ames Research Center. His primary work was in education and communication systems. Early life Mark Leon grew up in a rather rough East San Jose neighborhood, and graduated from James L ...

''FIRST'' Robotics

Lavery is very active within the

, and currently sits on the Executive Advisory Board of ''FIRST''. He is responsible for NASA's vast involvement in the competitions, having brought the organization to the attention of NASA in 1995. NASA now sponsors over 300 teams, and hosts teams at each of its research centers in the United States. He is a mentor for FRC Team 116 (Epsilon Delta (εΔ) "From small changes come big differences", from Herndon High School in

Herndon Herndon may refer to: People * Herndon (surname), an American surname * Herndon Davis (1901–1962), American artist, journalist, illustrator, and painter Places in the United States Communities * Herndon, California, an unincorporated commun ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. He was also a member of the FRC Game Design Committee until January 2011. Dave is also known for his work in creating the original game animations for the FIRST Robotics Competition. The Competition's Dave Lavery Animation Award for Excellence in Animation is named in honor of him.

References

External links

Dave Lavery at NASA.gov
NASA people Living people For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology 1959 births American computer scientists American roboticists Mars Exploration Rover mission {{US-scientist-stub