Kathryn Koerkenmeier

Kathryn Koerkenmeier serves as a key procurement professional at NASA Ames Research Center, where she manages complex research and development acquisitions aligned with the agency’s mission to advance aeronautics, space exploration, and scientific discovery. She specializes in securing technical services and engineering solutions that support next-generation flight systems, autonomous navigation, and high-performance computing initiatives. Her acquisitions are strategically aligned with NASA’s technology development priorities, ensuring that contracted capabilities directly enable mission-critical R&D across physical, engineering, and life sciences domains. She operates within a highly technical acquisition environment requiring deep subject matter expertise and strict compliance with federal aerospace procurement standards. Koerkenmeier maintains a consistent working relationship with Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC, a primary contractor providing advanced systems engineering and analytical support for NASA’s flight and computational research programs. Her procurement pattern reflects a preference for long-term, performance-based partnerships with vendors capable of delivering specialized technical expertise in hypersonics, thermal protection systems, and autonomous systems. She favors contractors with proven experience in government-funded R&D and a demonstrated capacity to operate under stringent NASA technical and compliance requirements. Her contracting approach is fully committed to small business participation, with 100% of her acquisitions structured as total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. This reflects a deliberate strategy to foster innovation through agile, specialized firms with niche capabilities in aerospace R&D. She actively cultivates relationships with small businesses possessing technical certifications and proven track records in supporting federal science missions. Her procurement focus is exclusively centered on NAICS 541715—Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences—encompassing services such as computational modeling, flight dynamics analysis, sensor integration, and systems prototyping. She procures high-value technical expertise to support NASA’s cutting-edge research initiatives, ensuring that contracted work directly advances the center’s goals in space exploration and aeronautical innovation.