Keith Parrish – Webb Observatory Commissioning Manager, NASA

Keith Parrish is the Observatory Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland. In this capacity, Parrish leads and oversees the technical efforts of the Observatory contractor team to insure all science mission performance requirements are met. Parrish coordinates closely with Mission and Observatory Systems Engineering in the identification and resolution of any technical issues and risks related to Observatory design, performance, integration, and testing.

Parrish's involvement in Webb began in 1997 when he led the thermal design and analysis efforts of the early architecture studies. Parrish served as the project's thermal system manager thru 2011 and was responsible for cryogenic proof of concept tests of the Observatory's core region and one third scale Sunshield models. Parrish served as the project's Sunshield manager from 2004 thru its critical design review in 2010. Parrish became the Observatory Manager in 2011 and remains active in overall Observatory thermal verification and Sunshield development activities.

Parrish joined the Goddard Space Flight Center in 1990 and led and assisted with the thermal engineering and analysis of several in-house and out-of house missions; including the launch of, and first two servicing missions to, the Hubble Space Telescope. He is the recipient of NASA's Outstanding Leadership Medal and Robert H. Goddard Honor awards for exceptional achievement in engineering and management.

Parrish has a B.S in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland College Park (1989) and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from George Washington University (1995).