2021 HENAAC Awards

Dr. Donald R. Mendoza’s 23-year career at NASA Ames Research Center has covered multiple titles, including Systems Engineer, Knowledge Management Officer, and Quality Management System Manager, to name just a few.  In his current position, he is responsible for the overall administration and technical operation of the systems safety and mission assurance division, covering facilities across Ames Research Center.

The thread connecting his multiple appointments is that each required a dedication to the service of others.  An agent of change and a force multiplier, Dr. Mendoza has helped ensure that Ames Research Center continually meets NASA’s and the industry’s strict quality management standards.  In the process, he’s leveraged his ever-expanding roles to help historically underrepresented people like him reach their career goals.  He’s well known as a champion of diversity and inclusion across NASA.

Dr. Mendoza’s journey to a remarkable career at the world’s leading space agency began in the most unlikely place imaginable: on his family’s farm near California’s San Joaquin River.  But it was there he became captivated with flight by watching the birds gliding overhead as he labored 7 days a week every summer – from sunup to sundown in 110-degree heat some days – from the time he was just six until he left for college.

Donald eventually graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a degree Aerospace Engineering, and would go on to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley.

Among his many achievements, Dr. Mendoza counts building the Ames Research Center’s most diverse and inclusive technical organization to be the most significant in his long career.