Women@NASA 2015 CJ Bixby / AFRC

Biography

Cynthia (C.J.) Bixby is the chief of the Systems Engineering and Integration branch at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. Bixby supervises and advises both project chief and system engineers. She also works with other branch chiefs around Armstrong to ensure a healthy pipeline of engineering management candidates. Bixby’s personal drive is to support project and systems engineers set themselves up for success by tailoring systems engineering requirements for their particular project circumstances. Her efforts help make their work reliable and predictable. Prior to becoming chief, Bixby was the systems engineer for the Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge project, which researched whether use of flexible trailing edge wing flaps on a NASA Gulfstream were more efficient and reduce noise from takeoffs to landings. Earlier in her NASA career, she was acting deputy and then acting chief of the Flight Systems branch. She acted as chief systems engineer on the Unmanned Aerial Systems in the National Air Space, or UAS in the NAS, project, which is researching how to introduce drones into the NAS. She began her civil service career at NASA Armstrong in 2006 as a flight systems engineer and quickly became deputy lead engineer in the Flight Test Office. She was both deputy lead engineer and systems engineer lead for the Orion crew capsule pad abort test that was successfully performed in 2010. Prior to 2006, Bixby worked for Spiral, Inc., overseeing system integration and testing of a suite of hardware and software designed to enable research of intelligent flight control for a joint project with Air Force using its C-17 testbed aircraft. She also managed a flight demonstration team to evaluate collision avoidance systems necessary for the UAS NAS. After receiving her college degree, she was employed by Lockheed Martin, in Fort Worth, Texas, as a flight test engineer for the F-16 jet’s combined test force. She then transferred to the company’s Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, and was responsible for planning and executing flight tests on experimental aircraft. Bixby earned her Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. Bixby has received numerous awards as contractor for Lockheed Martin as well as from NASA with peer awards for her work as a contractor engineer and as a NASA manager.