Allison Wolff

Most Inspiring Up & Comer

Allison Wolff has been at NASA for nearly 17 years, starting in human resources and advancing to her current role as an applications architect in the Office of Chief Information Officer. A major pandemic-driven innovation at the agency was setting up a contact tracing and tracking system to identify COVID exposure at NASA facilities, especially important because so many agency operations need to be in-person. Wolff worked with her office and NASA’s medical community to develop and deploy the application in less than two months. Wolff also had the added challenge every parent had this year: learning how to balance the demands of a global pandemic with full-time childcare and a transition to online learning with her three daughters. “It’s not easy but we feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to work from home, the flexibility to support our family’s needs and the unexpected blessing of (temporarily) playing a more integral role in our children’s education,” she said.