Dr. Therese Moretto Jorgensen
Director of Research Programs for NASA's Heliophysics Division
Dr. Therese Moretto Jorgensen is the director of research programs for the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. In this role, Moretto Jorgensen manages the research investments of the division, overseeing more than 20 program scientists assigned to a broad research portfolio across the heliophysics discipline.
Prior to her current role, Dr. Moretto Jorgensen served as the Heliophysics Division’s acting deputy director on detail from NASA’s Ames Research Center where she was director of the New Opportunities Center (NOC). At the NOC, Moretto Jorgensen provided ARC leadership with strategic advice regarding new business, assisted in the formulation of spaceflight and aerospace missions, and served as the subject matter expert for proposal development activities. She joined NASA Ames in January 2021 as Chief Scientist for NASA’s Small Spacecraft Virtual Institute.
Before joining NASA, Dr. Moretto Jorgensen was a senior scientist and adviser on research management and planning at the Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Norway. She also was the associate coordinator for the ESA Geomagnetic Expert Service Centre, an international collaboration of geomagnetic data providers to maintain and expand ESA’s geomagnetic space weather service. Further, she served as a member of the Mission Advisory Group and co-lead on the phase-0 science study for the Daedalus satellite project, a candidate for the Earth Explorers program.
From 2004 to 2017, Dr. Moretto Jorgensen was program director and head of the Geospace Sciences Section at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where she led the foundation’s research and education activities and served as the principal spokesperson for geospace science. During her tenure at NSF, she founded the CubeSat program at NSF, for which she received the Director’s Award for Excellence in Program Management in 2008; defined and led the implementation of a new dedicated program for space weather research, established in 2013; instituted a program in collaboration with NASA to foster the development of integrative space science models; established extended network observing capabilities, prominent examples of which are AMPERE and SuperDARN; increased diversity of NSF staff, review panels, and award recipients; and promoted science to a broad audience through high-visibility interviews and keynote presentations.
In recognition of extraordinary leadership and community service in the field of space science, particularly for her role in the support of CubeSat technology, Dr. Moretto Jorgensen was bestowed AGU’s 2020 Waldo E. Smith award. She also served as president for AGU’s Space Physics and Aeronomy Section during 2023-2024.
Dr. Moretto Jorgensen has authored or co-authored more than 50 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and has given more than 30 invited presentations at international conferences.