National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

Collaboration at NASA

IT Talk

Jan - Mar 2021 Volume 11 • Issue 1
IT Talk

Jan - Mar 2021 Volume 11 • Issue 1

Office of the CIO

NASA Headquarters

300 E Street SW

Washington, D.C. 20546

Chief Information Officer

Jeff Seaton (Acting)

Editor & Publication Manager

Eldora Valentine

Graphic & Web Designer

Michael Porterfield

Copy Editor

Meredith Isaacs

IT Talk is an official publication of the 

Office of the Chief Information Officer 

of the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration, Headquarters, 

Washington, D.C. It is published 

by the OCIO office for all NASA 

employees and external audiences.

For distribution questions or to 

suggest a story idea, email:

eldora.valentine-1@nasa.gov

To read IT Talk online visit:

www.nasa.gov/offices/ocio/ittalk

For more info on the OCIO:

v www.nasa.gov/offices/ocio

v inside.nasa.gov/ocio

 (Internal NASA network only)

v www.nasa.gov/open/

www.facebook.com/NASAcio

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Message From 

the NASA CIO

Collaboration

at NASA

Remote Collaboration 

Tools Support

NASA’s Mission

ICT SCRM

Takes a Village

Communications

Program Hosts

Webex Cheer Wall

In this Issue
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of effective collaboration. 

Enhanced remote teamwork tools with the accelerated availability of Teams, training sessions, Office 365 mobile applications, and the Teams Audio Conferencing 

service have allowed our Agency’s mission to successfully continue. Scientists 

and engineers have been able to collaborate with internal and external partners 

to develop research proposals, exchange ideas and observations, share data and 

analysis, and collaboratively develop scientific software applications. In this issue, 

we’ll look at how collaboration has evolved over the past several months and how 

we’re preparing for the future of work at NASA.

And we will explore how NASA’s Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) team is 

playing a pivotal role in lowering the threats and vulnerabilities associated with procuring information and communications technologies. We all share a responsibility 

to protect NASA’s network and understand and manage supply chain risk.

And finally, we’ll also highlight some prestigious awards that many of our Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) 

teammates have earned recently. This is a testament to the great work being done at the Centers that is helping to deliver 

critical capabilities to enable the NASA mission. I’m proud of how information technology at the Agency is evolving. Keep 

up the great work!

Jeff Seaton

NASA Chief Information Officer (Acting)

Arvin Baroni Recognized as a 2020 Rising Star

By Whitney Haggins, IT Communication Strategist,

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

The Government Innovation Awards, presented 

by Federal Computer Week, Government Computing News, and Washington Technology & 

Defense Systems, have named Arvin Baroni, a 

Product Lifecycle Management Senior Product 

Manager in the Information and Technology Solutions Directorate, as one of their 2020 Rising 

Stars. Baroni is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s 

(JPL’s) sixth Rising Star honoree since 2010. The 

Rising Star Award recognizes outstanding earlycareer individuals in the first ten years of their 

IT career whose work significantly impacts their 

employers.

Tasked with managing multiple critical projects 

within the Product Lifecycle Management arena, 

Baroni manages several products heavily used 

by the engineering community as part of a cadre 

of applications for streamlining information 

gathering/retention while creating labor efficiencies and process visibility. In his five years at 

JPL, Baroni has proven himself to be not only an 

effective project manager, but a trusted partner in the process, successfully teaming with 

multiple engineering organizations to balance 

their needs and priorities to meet their goals. As 

an ardent advocate for change and process flow 

improvement, he is passionate about learning 

and serves as a role model to his fellow group 

members; moreover, he is continuously challenging the status quo, driving for the highest 

standards in operations, user experience design/

user interface design (UX/UI), application development, and platform consistency.

Complete profiles for all the 2020 Rising 

Stars can be found at https://fcw.com/articles/2020/10/16/rising-stars-2020.aspx.

Arvin Baroni

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 3

Message from the NASA CIO 
ICT SCRM Takes a Village

By the ICT Supply Chain Risk Management Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

Information Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) is a huge title befitting 

the enormous task that NASA faces 

maintaining the security of all missioncritical systems that support the 

Agency. Since we rely extensively on 

computerized information systems and 

electronic data to carry out our wide 

variety of missions, the exploitation 

of ICT products and services through 

the global supply chain is an emerging 

and continuous threat that continues 

to grow.

ICT SCRM is not about hindering purchases—it is about protecting NASA. 

From design to disposal, NASA’s ICT 

supplies, products, and services are 

susceptible to compromise. When we 

fail to properly assess all ICT purchases for risks, bad things happen. 

Perfectly put by our partners at the 

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department 

of Homeland Security (DHS), those 

things are vulnerabilities that “can 

enable data and intellectual property 

theft, loss of confidence in the integrity 

of the system, or exploitation to cause 

system or network failure.”

The ICT SCRM analysts play a pivotal role in lowering the threats and 

vulnerabilities associated with procuring information and communications 

technologies. The comprehensive 

assessment process works to identify malicious software and hardware 

vulnerabilities, counterfeit components 

and poor product designs, manufacturing processes, and maintenance 

procedures. Our process ensures that 

only assessed and cleared covered articles enter the Agency’s supply chain.

While the ICT SCRM Team is on the 

front line of supply chain security, it 

takes a village. Protecting NASA’s 

network and understanding and managing supply chain risk is everyone’s 

responsibility.

Here are some easy steps to take 

whenever you need a new ICT supply, 

product, or service:

1. Check the Assessed and Cleared 

List to determine if the item has 

already been assessed for risk and 

approved for purchase.

2. If you cannot locate the item 

you need, submit a Request for 

Investigation (RFI), also known 

as a Supply Chain Risk Assessment Needed (SCAN) or NF 1823. 

Reach out to your Center’s SCRM 

Point of Contact for assistance 

with the form.

3. Visit the ICT SCRM website regularly for the latest SCRM news and 

the information you need to know 

to keep our supply chain and our 

missions safe. (Please note, this 

link is internal to NASA)

The ICT SCRM is a service provider of 

the Office of CyberSecurity Services 

(OCSS), supporting the OCIO’s Cybersecurity & Privacy Division (CSPD).

4 www.nasa.gov
Teams’ New Meeting Experience 

Designed for Focus

By Shaina Strom, End User Services Program Office Communications, Marshall Space Flight Center

The End User Services Program Office 

(EUSO) is continually looking at new 

and enhanced functionality coming 

from Microsoft to implement at NASA 

and improve the user experience.

Recently, Microsoft released New 

Meeting Experience and additional 

features meant to dim distractions 

and enhance focus. New Meeting 

Experience features will eventually be 

enabled by default, but until then, you 

can opt in to use them through your 

settings. Turn them on now to explore.

• Use Teams in multiple windows 

with pop-out meetings, creating 

a new, separate window with the 

Controls Menu at the top of the 

new window.

• Feel closer together with Together 

Mode and impose a shared background with meeting participants, 

making it feel like you are all sitting 

in the same room.

• Turn on the Spotlight for speakers 

so that all participants can give 

their attention to the main speaker. 

Meeting organizers can lock the 

individual video feed so that the 

speaker has the floor.

Upcoming releases give you more 

control over how you work in Teams.

• Native notifications on Mac and 

Windows devices allow you to 

choose how you would like to be 

notified through the settings.

• Reduced background noise uses 

artificial intelligence (AI) noise suppression technology to keep your 

barking coworkers a little quieter 

for your colleagues. Select one of 

four settings to suppress the right 

amount of background noise.

• Meeting chat moderation allows 

organizers to manage participants’ 

ability to chat before, during, or 

after the meeting, or if the chat 

should remain read-only.

Visit our O365 Roadmap for the latest information on new releases from 

Teams (please note this link is internal 

to NASA).

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 5
Collaboration at NASA

By Barbara Jo Webb, Customer Experience Specialist, Marshall Space Flight Center

This past year has been fun, interesting, 

frustrating, exhausting, and educational. 

We’ve learned to work with spouses 

walking through the room, children 

playing in the kitchen, and dogs barking in the background. Cats usually 

walk between you and your computer 

to ensure that they have been seen. 

Thanks to videoconferencing, we’ve 

seen how your home office is decorated 

and we’ve learned to work while the 

doorbell is ringing with your Amazon 

delivery. Simply stated, we’ve learned to 

work in a virtual environment, and we’ve 

learned the necessity of collaboration.

When faced with the situation of 

mandatory teleworking, our NASA 

workforce did not just accept the 

situation—they embraced it with 

determination and helped demonstrate to the OCIO the importance 

of having the correct set of tools to 

get the job done in an environment 

that involves remote collaboration.

NASA’s use of Microsoft Teams has 

shown that we can collaborate internally 

with ease. Files and documents are 

constantly being uploaded to Teams 

sites. Millions of messages have been 

sent across the Teams chat feature. And 

we did see you eating that sandwich 

during the Teams meeting yesterday.

Mobile access to VPN is currently 

in the pilot phase and will soon be 

available. What will that allow users to 

do? The mobile VPN access will allow 

secure browsing to internal NASA sites 

via Edge, mobile access to SharePoint 

Online sites, and access to collaborate 

from mobile devices on files stored on 

a user’s OneDrive account.

But what about trying to collaborate with partners outside of NASA? 

Admittedly, that gets a bit trickier. Due 

to the sensitivity of the NASA data, 

extra protocols need to be put in 

place to ensure that the data are kept 

secure and handled properly. Since 

most of you are using Zoom in your 

personal lives and are already familiar 

with its ease of use, you have repeatedly requested access for your use at 

work as well. The NASA OCIO went to 

work investigating the use cases, the 

functionality of the tool, and the security protocols. Beginning in January 

2021, Zoom Webinar will be offered 

for NASA employees’ use. And while 

there are some restrictions in place to 

maintain the security needed, Zoom 

Webinar will be available.

6 www.nasa.gov
But what else is available?

For sharing files, we have Box! We’re 

currently working to bring a Federal 

Information Security Management Act 

(FISMA)-moderate instance of Box 

to allow collaboration with external 

partners with credentials from another 

federal agency. Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU)/Personally Identifiable 

Information (PII)–Sensitive data will be 

allowed in this area.

If you need to share International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)/Export 

Administration Regulations (EAR) data, 

a pilot project is underway to support 

collaboration regarding the International 

Space Station (ISS)/European Space 

Agency (ESA) and allow external vetted 

Foreign National partners to collaborate 

on ITAR/EAR/SBU/PII-Sensitive documents using Box.

A FISMA-low instance of Slack is 

slated to be available for NASA to 

collaborate with external partners in 

January 2021.

And while virtual collaboration in a 

Microsoft Teams meeting is used on 

a daily basis within NASA, sometimes 

teams and organizations need to connect with larger audiences utilizing 

additional capabilities not found in a 

Teams meeting. Webex Meetings and 

Webex Training now support up to 

1,000 attendees, with the ability to use 

Breakout Rooms for additional sessions in a virtual conference or meeting.

Trying to plan the logistics of a large 

meeting or conference and are not 

sure where to get started? NASA’s 

OCIO has provided an entire site for 

you to investigate what is available 

and request assistance with selecting 

the appropriate tool and submitting 

the request. Visit Getting Started with 

Planning Your Virtual Event for more 

information.

The NASA OCIO team has worked to 

identify the needs of the workforce 

and provide solutions in a safe environment to make collaboration possible. While not all needs have been 

answered, investigations continue in 

an effort to provide what the workforce 

needs to collaborate and continue 

work in a secure environment.

To start collaborating, visit:

https://nasa.sharepoint.com/sites/collaboration. (Please note, all links are 

internal to NASA.)

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 7
Remote Collaboration Tools Support 

NASA’s Mission of Exploration

By Daniel Horton, End User Services Program Office Communications, Marshall Space Flight Center

Working and collaborating online took on 

a new meaning in 2020. Instead of being 

supplementary to onsite work, it has become a 

primary conduit of productivity as remote work 

has become the norm over the last year.

This has been the case for the women and 

men of NASA, who still have a mission to explore our solar system and return boots to the 

Moon in the coming years. Keeping that task 

on schedule has required many tools enabling 

remote collaboration provided by the End User 

Services Program Office (EUSO).

One of the most exciting accomplishments of 

2020 was the return of crewed launches from 

Kennedy Space Center. In March, Operations 

Integrator Manager Mike Hess commented 

that “through all of the time of remote work, 

we haven’t slowed down.” Hess’s Commercial 

Crew Program team at Kennedy Space Center 

continued to leverage tools like Microsoft 

Teams and Office 365, remotely supporting 

flight readiness reviews of crewed launches to 

the International Space Station.

“If anything, the pace of work has accelerated 

using many of the standard tools for teleworking,” Hess mentioned. EUSO’s remote collaboration tools would minimize face-to-face 

interaction, ensuring a safe launch of crewed 

commercial flights.

Just down the road on the Space Coast, 

launches to another target took place. In July, 

the Perseverance Rover started its journey to 

the Jezero Crater on Mars, thanks in part to 

remote collaboration tools from EUSO.

Michael Haddad is part of the Safety and Mission Assurance Launch Services team on this 

mission. He continued to work online with his 

colleagues to ensure that a healthy launch vehicle could give Perseverance a smooth ride to 

Mars. “Cube-to-cube interaction is something 

that was useful to us onsite, but now it’s been 

replaced by Teams,” explained Haddad. “We’re 

all using video chat. It’s gotten so commonplace that we’re used to our kids or dogs being 

part of our team meetings.”

These online meetings have also been crucial 

in studying other objects in our solar system. 

One example is with Solveig Irvine of the Planetary Mission Program Office. Irvine has had 

a very busy year, studying both the NEOWISE 

Comet and the asteroid Bennu as they have 

passed near Earth. Working on these projects 

requires collaboration between Marshall Space 

Flight Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, the 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and many others.

Irvine explained that her team has “continued 

to excel using our virtual tools—both with the 

mission planning and execution, and even having some virtual celebrations with the team to 

mark milestone events.” Remote collaboration 

took on a whole new meaning in October, as 

the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource 

Identification, Security–Regolith Explorer 

(OSIRIS-REx) craft collected samples from 

Bennu. During the approach, the whole team 

spread across the country was able to watch. 

Even while working from home, Irvine described that it was “one of the best moments I 

have experienced in my career.”

The adaptations required by the past year 

have not been an obstruction to the mission. In 

combination, the flexibility of NASA’s workforce 

and the remote collaboration tools provided by 

EUSO have ensured that 2020 was indeed a 

landmark year. From crewed flights to the International Space Station, to the exploration of 

planets and objects in our solar system, work 

has continued at the speed of light.

8 www.nasa.gov
Technology-Enabled Strategic Partnerships Are 

Critical to Goddard’s Science Missions

By Steve Thornton, Acting Division Chief, Solutions Division, Information Technology and Communications Directorate 

(Code 730), Goddard Space Flight Center

Congress founded NASA in 1958 as 

America’s civilian space and aeronautics agency. Central to NASA’s mission 

are ensuring that space activities are 

devoted to peaceful purposes for the 

benefit of all humankind; maximizing 

the commercial use of space; expanding human knowledge of Earth, its 

atmosphere, and space; using longrange studies to advance science 

and peaceful space and aeronautic 

activities; conducting the search for 

life’s origin, evolution, distribution, and 

future in the universe; and cooperating 

with other nations in these pursuits. 

As such, in this digital age, collaborative strategic partnerships and collaborative science, effectively enabled 

by technology, are critical to NASA’s 

mission.

Goddard’s scientists and engineers 

collaborate with internal and external 

partners to develop research proposals, exchange ideas and observations, 

share data and data analysis, and collaboratively develop scientific software 

applications. NASA’s external partners in the scientific community are 

employed by universities worldwide, 

foreign space agencies, other U.S. 

Government agencies, and private 

industry. 

More than 50 Goddard spacecraft 

explore Earth and soar through the 

solar system, collecting observations to be parsed and studied by this 

global community of scientists in the 

disciplines of Earth science, solar science and the Sun-Earth environment, 

planetary studies, and astrophysics. 

Goddard’s Sciences and Exploration 

Directorate currently has 19 missions 

and projects under study, 30 in development, and 222 in operations. Most 

of these include Government, academic, or private-sector partners and 

require effective, secure collaboration; 

workflow integration; and integrated 

design and testing capabilities. Goddard is on track for jointly authoring 

over 1,400 publications with nonNASA collaborators globally. Many of 

these publications are the end-product 

of collaborative research and development, for which IT is a critical enabler.

Goddard scientists also rely on information technology, including end-user 

devices, inter-connected networks, 

cloud computing, applications, and 

identity management capabilities to 

collaborate securely with several critical Federal agency partners, including 

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA) and the United 

States Geological Survey (USGS). All 

three agencies collaborate regularly 

around their respective missions and 

create standards around Earth science 

data and supporting platforms, such 

as cloud computing.

Since COVID-19, effective, secure 

collaboration capabilities have become even more critical to Goddard’s 

mission. In order to provide value and 

enable the mission for our scientists, 

engineers, and flight project directorate customers, NASA OCIO is working to improve large file sharing with 

external partners, as well as the ability 

to easily share identities and credentials with partners. In October 2020, 

the Agency started piloting the use of 

Slack to provide NASA project teams 

and scientists with a persistent groupchat application that allows them to 

share FISMA low data with external 

partners. The Slack project team is 

working toward a goal to make Slack 

available NASA-wide by March 2021. 

Goddard’s important mission work 

has largely continued, despite the 

pandemic, and technology has been a 

critical enabler for this work.

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 9
Communications Program Hosts Webex Cheer 

Wall for SpaceX DM-2 and Crew-1 Launches

By Sylvester Placid, Communications Strategist, Communications Program, Marshall Space Flight Center

When NASA and SpaceX launched Crew Dragon Demo-2 on May 30 and Crew-1 on November 15, the astronauts were 

cheered on—virtually—by several hundred personnel from NASA, SpaceX, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), 

California Polytechnic State University, and other mission partners using an innovative collaboration solution from the Communications Program (CP).

CP hosted a Webex “cheer wall” that enabled video greetings for the astronauts from people across NASA and our external 

partners. The Webex sessions were collected and compiled by NASA video production teams for DM-2 and Crew-1.

10 www.nasa.gov
JPL IT volunteers support 2020 

Congressional App Challenge

By Whitney Haggins, IT Communication Strategist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Four members of the AI, Analytics and 

Innovation Development (1740) team 

served as judges in the 2020 Congressional App Challenge for California’s 

27th district (Judy Chu). The Congressional App Challenge, an official 

initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, is recognized as the largest 

student computer science competition 

globally. 2020 was an immense challenge to date, with more than 6,000 

students registered for the event. 

Participants were from 308 districts 

across 49 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, 

the Mariana Islands, and Washington, 

D.C. Information on the challenge can 

be found at https://www.congressionalappchallenge.us/about/. 

For Rep. Chu’s district, the ITSD judging team consisted of Data Scientists 

Valentino Constantinou, Annie Didier, 

Anastasia Menshikova, and Hamsa 

Venkataram. The submissions were 

from grades K-12. Judges first individually reviewed the video submissions 

and then virtually convened to discuss 

the entries and make recommendations to Rep. Chu based on creativity, 

the importance of the issue/concept 

the app attempts to solve, technique, 

and quality of presentation. For Annie Didier, the judging experience 

was inspiring, and she is interested 

in participating as a judge next year. 

Didier said, “ It’s incredible to see what 

these kids have put together. Some 

of them even have apps available on 

the app store and are in use by other 

people. There were even a few where I 

thought, “I need that!” I would love to 

hire some of these kids!”

2020 marked Valentino Constantinou’s 

second time as an app challenge 

judge. He enjoyed the experience so 

much he signed on to participate this 

year. Constantinou noted an increase 

in participation from 2019 and welcomed the community involvement. 

The biggest surprise to him was how 

the students were much more technically savvy than he was at that age, 

from the technical content and the 

quality of their video submissions.

Rep. Chu announced the winning 

entries in a virtual award ceremony on 

December 12. 

• First Place

Zion Asemota – Help4Med

• Best Presentation

Charlie Heatherly, Julia Heatherly, 

Andrew Smithwick – Red Dungeon

• Best Technical

Devin Shih, Lewis Polansky, 

Nicholas Parra – Hoursly

• Honorable Mention

Jolene Lee, Lauren Hu, Connor 

Wang, Xiangbo Qi – ClubSpace

• Honorable Mention

Ariana Pineda – Purity – Gout Diet 

Management

• Honorable Mention

Sulekha Kishore – Fruitfull

• Honorable Mention

Ethan Chantanusart – Common 

Language Translator

JPL IT volunteer judges (clockwise from top left):

Valentino Constantinou, Annie Didier, Hamsa 

Venkataram, and Anastasia Menshikova

(Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 11
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Office of the Chief Information Officer

300 E Street SW

Washington, DC 20546

www.nasa.gov

NASA

Honor Awards: Kudos to the OCIO Team!

By Eldora Valentine, OCIO Communications Manager, NASA Headquarters

Congratulations to the following team members in the NASA Office of 

the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) for winning awards.

The NASA IT Strategy and 

Performance Team has won 

a silver achievement medal 

in the Agency Honor Awards. 

Team members include 

Meredith Isaacs, Lara Petze, 

and Jon Walsh. This team 

transformed the strategic 

management of NASA’s 

information technology (IT) to 

better enable NASA’s mission in alignment with Agency 

and Federal direction. They supported the NASA CIO and worked with Agency customers to establish a 

clear IT value proposition and customer-oriented strategy to strengthen performance management and 

promote effective stewardship of NASA’s IT while implementing repeatable processes to make future efforts sustainable and cost-efficient. NASA’s IT Strategic Plan for FY 2018–21 is an outcome-oriented plan 

based on engagement with diverse stakeholders and first-ever approval through NASA’s IT Council.

Allison Wolff has won a FedScoop 50 award for Most Inspiring Up & Comer. 

Wolff is an applications architect in OCIO. She worked with NASA’s medical 

community to develop and deploy a contact tracing and tracking system application during COVID-19. FedScoop 50 Awards celebrate the tireless leaders who 

have made a lasting impact on the community and the Nation in 2020, particularly in regard to how they used technology to respond to and overcome the 

challenges of the COVID-19 outbreak. For more information about the FedScoop 

Awards visit https://www.fedscoop.com/list/2020-fedscoop-50/ .

Meredith Isaacs Lara Petze Jon Walsh

Allison Wolff

IT Talk