A flight engineer, she is safety and mission assurance manager of the space shuttle programme at the Johnson Space Center. Before assuming this position in September 2003, she was chief of the Robotics Branch of NASA's Astronaut Office. Her four shuttle missions include the Endeavour flight to assemble the International Space Station in December 1998, when she operated the robot arm to connect the Unity and Zarya modules, and the Columbia flight in March 2002 to service the Hubble Space Telescope. She was assigned to the Johnson Space Center in 1987 and selected as an astronaut in 1990. Following the space shuttle Columbia tragedy in 2003, she was selected to lead the Space Shuttle Program Safety and Mission Assurance Office, assisting with NASA’s Return to Flight efforts. She currently serves as a principal engineer in the NASA Engineering and Safety Center.