Alumna named project manager for NASA’s Voyager program

Suzanne Dodd first worked on Voyager in 1984, sequencing science and engineering commands for Voyager 1 and 2. A memento of those early years is a sheet of vellum that shows the timeline of commands communicated to Voyager 2 during its closest approach to Neptune on Aug. 25, 1989. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

From humble Northwest beginnings in Gig Harbor, Wash., Suzanne Dodd ’84 now finds herself probing the farthest reaches of our solar system. The Whitman alumna was recently named project manager of the illustrious Voyager program at NASA. The crafts, Voyager 1 and 2, are NASA’s longest operated and most remote respectively. However, Dodd is not unaccustomed to such weighty responsibility.

Since earning a degree in mathematics from Whitman and an engineering degree from Caltech through a joint program, Dodd has been intimately involved in numerous other high-level space exploration programs. From Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the Spitzer Space Telescope team, Dodd has been making the most of her passion for discovery.