National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

Biography

Image Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls

Lee Noble is responsible for the overall planning, management, and evaluation of the 

directorate’s efforts to conduct experimental flight research, and to test the most promising 

concepts and technologies from across the ARMD portfolio at an integrated system level.

He supports the ARMD associate administrator in a broad range of mission directorate 

activities, including strategic and program planning, budget development, program review 

and evaluation, and external coordination.

Previously, Noble was the deputy director for the Integrated Aviation Systems Program. 

In collaboration with the program director, Noble was responsible for day-to-day operations in the program office, including coordinating with NASA and industry personnel 

to ensure that program efforts were aligned with ARMD strategy and complementary to 

other ARMD initiatives.

Noble served as chief engineer for ARMD’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) 

project. Prior to this position he was the ERA project’s lead systems engineer, where he 

established a formal systems engineering process and led a team of systems engineers.

Noble began his NASA career in 2009 as a systems engineer in the Mechanical Systems 

Branch at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. He supported Orion Water 

Impact Testing at NASA Langley, including development and check-out of the water 

basin, as a lead systems engineer. Following Orion, he served on project teams for several 

small research efforts. His final position prior to coming to NASA Aeronautics was to 

serve as the deputy project manager for the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment – 3 

(IRVE-3) – that launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and successfully 

demonstrated sub-orbital flight and reentry.

Prior to NASA, Noble worked for the Triumph Group in Newport News, Virginia, where 

he developed wind-tunnel models for aerospace customers and led turbomachinery projects 

to produce hardware for advanced propulsion technology demonstrations. He later joined 

the Triumph management team, serving as director of turbomachinery programs, director of 

engineering, and director of business development.

Noble has been awarded two NASA Group Achievement Awards as well as the ARMD 

Associate Administrator Award for Technology and Innovation and was recognized as a 

member of the ERA project at the 59th Aviation Week Laureate Awards. The ERA project 

was the selected winner in the “Technology” category for developing and demonstrating 

performance-improving technologies that could be used to make the next generation of civil 

aircraft more efficient, economical, and environmentally friendly. While at the Triumph 

Group, Noble received the President’s Award for innovation and outstanding leadership. He is 

an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (class of 2022).

Noble received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of California 

in Irvine, California.

Mr. Lee Noble

Director, Integrated Aviation Systems Program (IASP)

NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD)