Three Johns Hopkins APL Staffers Named Associate Fellows by Aerospace Technical Society

Three members of the Space Exploration Sector (SES) at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, have been named 2025 Associate Fellows by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Elena Adams, lander systems engineer on NASA’s Dragonfly mission; Betsy Congdon, SES chief technologist; and Dipak Srinivasan, strategic engagements and formulation area manager for APL’s Space Formulation Mission Area, are among the 127 individuals being inducted into the organization’s associate fellows class.

“I am proud to see these three exemplary staff members be recognized for their outstanding work advancing space science and technology,” said Bobby Braun, head of SES at APL.

Prior to her current role on Dragonfly — a revolutionary rotorcraft mission to Saturn’s moon Titan — Adams was the mission systems engineer on NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which successfully demonstrated technology capable of diverting potentially hazardous asteroids from Earth. Prior to joining APL in 2008, she was a planetary scientist, working on NASA missions to Jupiter and Saturn. Since pivoting to her role as a systems engineer, Adams has worked on NASA and European Space Agency missions to Jupiter, Mars, Earth’s Van Allen Belts and the Sun, as well as studies for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As SES chief technologist, Congdon is responsible for cultivating the vision for innovation and technology development across the sector as well as connecting staff members with technical resources, and managing the SES strategic university research program. Since joining APL in 2006, Congdon has served as lead engineer for the thermal protection system aboard Parker Solar Probe — which is poised to make the closest approach to the Sun of any spacecraft this Christmas Eve — as well as mechanical lead engineer for DART.

Srinivasan has worked on spacecraft systems for more than two decades. He serves as communications systems engineer for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, launching this month to explore Jupiter’s icy moon. Last April, Srinivasan managed the fifth iteration of a U.S. government Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise hosted at APL, which brought together domestic and international leaders to coordinate and evaluate a global response to a simulated asteroid impact threat to Earth. He has also held leadership roles on NASA’s Van Allen Probes, New Horizons, STEREO and MESSENGER missions, and now leads efforts to enable APL’s future space missions.

The AIAA associate fellow designation is granted to individuals “who have accomplished or been in charge of important engineering or scientific work, or who have done original work of outstanding merit, or who have otherwise made outstanding contributions to the arts, sciences, or technology of aeronautics or astronautics,” said AIAA, the world’s largest aerospace technical society.

AIAA will honor and induct its newest associate fellows during the 2025 AIAA SciTech Forum, held Jan. 6-10, 2025, in Orlando, Florida.