Brief Bio
A few highlights...
Beth retired from NASA in May 2018 after serving the majority of her 33-year federal career in Washington D.C. She is a non-linear, disruptive thinker with a proven history of creating innovative solutions to complex problems. As an outcome-based social scientist and career civil servant, Beth is fascinated by organizational dynamics and governance processes, and believes non-traditional collaborative partnerships offer unexpected and untapped ways to resolve intractable issues facing society. She has a heart for women entrepreneurs in creative fields.
Beth currently serves as the Founder/CEO/Executive Director of two nonprofit corporations: MillHouse Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit; and MillHouse McKinney, a 501(c)(6) membership-based business league. Both organizations, located at the historic McKinney Cotton Mill, support and uplift female entrepreneurs in creative fields through access to fellow creatives to learn and teach, showcase their products and services, and collaborate and grow their businesses. MillHouse Foundation manages an active festival calendar with two indoor art festivals each summer and winter, an outdoor mural festival, and multiple indoor Makers Markets. MillHouse will host the 2024 International Postcard Art Exhibit, and participates in local festivals, such as McKinney Arts in Bloom. MillHouse McKinney operates a 14,000 sq. ft. facility with 32 private and open member studios, two photography studios, kitchen, conference room, workshop space, and collaborative suite for co-working.
Beth serves as Chair of the McKinney City Library Advisory Board, and was honored by the McKinney Courier Gazette as a Woman of Inspiration McKinney Class of 2024. She donates her time and talent with Empty Bowls McKinney to combat hunger. She was nominated by the McKinney Community Development Corporation for the 2023 McKinney Quality of Life Award. She previously served on the Executive Committee of the Volunteer McKinney Board of Directors, the McKinney Art Studio Board of Directors, Collin County Culture of Innovation Committee, and volunteered as a YMCA Texas Youth in Government Advisor at McKinney Boyd High School.
Before leaving NASA, Beth juggled multiple positions in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). For a season, she served as the Acting Deputy Associate CIO for Technology and Innovation, where she helped guide NASA’s data strategy, technology infusion, strategic investment decisions, and identification of emerging IT push-technologies. As Acting Information Management Program Executive, Beth created an Agency-level information architecture to enhance secure and appropriate access to NASA’s high value data and information assets to enable information-centric decisions. As Open Innovation Program Manager, Beth led the award-winning International Space Apps Challenge for three years, attracting over 15,000 participants at 161 global locations in 61 countries. She developed new initiatives to identify and support Women in Data, and spur innovation in local communities through citizen engagement with NASA's Open Data, including NASA's award-winning Datanaut initiative, which selected the fifth class of data explorers in January 2018; the Project Acceleration Toolkit for local communities to incubate promising data innovation projects; and NASA's Data Bootcamp, a one-day introduction to data, code, and problem-solving.
Before joining the CIO’s Office, Beth served as the Human Spaceflight Outreach Manager. She adopted Twitter early in 2007 as one of the first NASA users. She coordinated development of NASA's first official Facebook page, and planned and supported Tweetups for Space Shuttle and Space Station missions. Beth co-founded the award-winning LAUNCH.org program to connect with sustainability-minded audiences to demonstrate relevance between scarce resources on Earth and life in the extremely hostile environment of space. She created NASA's web-based 3-D multimedia collection for easy public access to models and tools created by NASA designers.
Beth received NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal for innovative public outreach programs and the Women in Aerospace Public Awareness Award, and was recognized by FedScoop as one of DC's Top Women in Tech. In May 2018, the UK Data Leaders Awards honored Beth as the Global Leaders Winner/Best in Class, and the Judges Choice Award for her efforts to equip citizens around the world to problem-solve using NASA data and tools.
Beth, a Phi Beta Kappa, received both graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin in government and public affairs, and holds a PhD in Planning, Governance, and Globalization from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Her research focuses on the rise and fall of ideas within collaborative practice, and identifies group conflict as a common catalyst for innovative outcomes.
On the creative side, Beth studied non-traditional photography and printmaking at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC. Her pinhole photography was featured in a one-artist exhibit at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia. Her work is featured in the book, Poems, Prayers, and Parables, and is held in private collections across the US. As a creative writer, her work has been recognized through manuscript competitions held by the Texas Writers League in Austin. She has multiple manuscripts in progress. Beth is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the Texas Writers League.