Benjamin Alvin Drew is the director for space sustainability at NASA Headquarters, where he is responsible designing and implementing an empowered organizational entity to focus on day-to day coordination and accountability of the agency’s space sustainability efforts. He also serves as acting director of Cross-Directorate Technical Integration for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, where he is responsible for agency-wide coordination between Space Operations management, programs, and activities, and NASA programs. In this role, Drew facilitates communications and consensus on technical matters. His work ensures the reliable delivery of functional integrated systems and missions that meet agency goals, and Space Operations key services to NASA missions. 

Drew previously served as the NASA liaison to the Department of Defense, manager for NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Program’s Deep Space Habitat Project, and NASA director of operations at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. Drew first joined NASA in 2000 as an astronaut candidate. He subsequently flew on space shuttle missions STS-118 and STS-133, where he performed spacewalks constructing the International Space Station.  

From 2015 to 2016, Drew worked at the White House, in the Obama Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy staff, as assistant director for Aviation and Space Security; from 2016 through 2020, he was a presidentially-appointed member to the U.S. Air Force Academy Board of Visitors; and in 2021, he co-founded the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship for minority aerospace internships.  

Prior to joining NASA, Drew served for 30 years in the U.S. Air Force as a command pilot-astronaut – logging more than 4,000 hours – flying combat rescue and special operations missions, as a test pilot, and in space. He has bachelor’s degrees in physics and in astronautical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and master’s degrees in aerospace science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and in strategic studies from the Air War College at the U.S. Air Force’s Air University.