Brent Barbee

Brent Barbee is the Planetary Defense Officer for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. He previously served as the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Lead Planetary Defense Application Scientist and Community Liaison. He was also an adjunct faculty member in the University of Maryland’s Department of Aerospace Engineering, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses. At NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Brent led interagency spacecraft mission design research and development activities for planetary defense against hazardous asteroids and comets. He also previously served on the Investigation Team for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft mission, and on the Flight Dynamics Team for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. He was also one of the lead authors of the White House’s U.S. National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan. Brent earned his B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Main-belt asteroid 120208 was renamed “Brentbarbee” in honor of his contributions to asteroid missions and planetary defense.