Kevin Rivers Biography

 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Langley Research Center

KEVIN RIVERS – BIOGRAPHY

Deputy Director, Research Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center

 

Education:

B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University

M.S. Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominium University

 

As Deputy Director, Mr. Rivers provides executive leadership to 605 civil servants and 350 contractors in the Research Directorate (RD) at NASA’s Langley Research Center to propose, advocate, plan, staff and execute programs, projects, and research activities to enable NASA’s strategic goals and missions.  He provides research and technology project guidance and planning coordination, promotes collaboration, conducts technical reviews, resolves execution barriers and ensures safety and mission assurance to RD’s projects.  Mr. Rivers is responsible for the center’s Structures & Materials product line, including workforce, infrastructure, new business and execution strategy, as well as supervision and direction for the structures & materials team in RD.

Prior to this assignment, as Deputy Director for Flight Projects, Mr. Rivers assisted the Director for Flight Projects at Langley in leading and managing the development and execution of advanced flight projects to support all NASA Missions including: Aeronautics, Human Exploration and Operations, Science, and Space Technology.  He is also responsible for long-range project planning and formulation of Project Office objectives, policy and processes.

He managed the Launch Abort System Office within the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Program from Jan. 2009 to Dec. 2014, where he was responsible for all aspects of the launch abort system development.  He successfully led the launch abort system team to develop and demonstrate the launch abort system through the Pad Abort-1 flight test in May 2010 and through the Exploration Flight Test-1 in December 2014.

During his 27-year career at NASA-Langley, Mr. Rivers has served as research engineer, project technical lead, branch head, and project manager.  In these prior assignments, he led the development of advanced structures technologies for future spacecraft, an on-orbit repair for the Space Shuttle wing-leading-edge , and the integrated vehicle design and analysis for the historic Ares 1-X flight test that flew in November 2009.

Mr. Rivers earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Mississippi State University and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering at Old Dominium University.

He has authored many technical articles and also holds numerous letters of patent.