Kathleen Karika is NASA’s associate administrator for the agency’s Office of International and Interagency Relations (OIIR). The office is responsible for executive leadership and coordination for all NASA international and interagency activities and partnerships, policy interactions between NASA and other U.S. Executive Branch offices and agencies, and administration of export control. She also serves as the agency’s senior accountable officer for the White House’s Made in America Council.

Karika joined NASA in 2025, after spending 15 years in the U.S. commercial space industry, where she led international business development teams and engaged across the U.S. government, and with allies and partners, on commercial, civil, and national security space missions. She most recently served as director of Research Operations at Virgin Galactic, where she managed business development for suborbital microgravity research missions for the U.S. and international governments, academia, and industry.

Prior to joining Virgin Galactic, Karika oversaw capture activities for international government satellite pursuits at both Maxar (now Vantor and Intuitive Machines) and Lockheed Martin. She also held positions at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Avascent (now Oliver Wyman), and the U.S. House of Representatives Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Karika holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematical Sciences and a Master of International Affairs from Texas A&M University. She served on the Board of Directors for the American Astronautical Society from 2014-2025, where she served terms as the vice president of International and the vice president of Education and Young Professionals.