SpaceCom 2017

Karen Taminger
Materials Research Engineer
NASA Langley Research Center


Ms. Karen Taminger is a Senior Materials Research Engineer at NASA Langley Research Center in the Advanced Materials and Processing Branch. She currently serves as a technical lead for structures in transport aircraft, and for several in-space and for-space manufacturing projects. Over the past 15 years, she has also led development of the Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication (EBF3) technology for high performance, low cost fabrication of metallic structures for aircraft, launch vehicles, and spacecraft. She has spent 3 hours in zero-gravity (in 15-second increments!) while parabolic flight testing EBF3 for compatibility with the space environment. She is the co-inventor on five issued patents and four other patent disclosures, and co-author on more than 35 papers and 100 presentations. She was awarded a NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal in 2014, a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2007, and her team was selected for the runner-up NASA Patent of the Year in 2016 and Langley’s Whitcomb-Holloway Technology Transfer Award in 2008, all related to her work in metal additive manufacturing. Karen earned her BS in Honors from Virginia Tech in 1989, majoring in Materials Engineering, and her MS degree from Virginia Tech in 1999 in Materials Science and Engineering. She has been employed at NASA Langley Research Center as a co-operative education student from 1986-1989, and full-time since graduating with her BS in 1989.

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