David Meza, acting branch chief of people analytics and senior data scientist at Nasa, is helping the US space agency to identify its key data science skills gaps and to put in place a series of programmes to help the organisation secure the expertise it needs.
With analyst Gartner suggesting that more than half (53%) of companies believe the inability to identify in-demand skills is the biggest impediment to business transformation, Meza’s work at Nasa could help the agency find the next-generation capability it needs to fulfil some of its most important work during the next few decades – including space travel and beyond.
“Of course, that’s definitely part of it – when we’re in the news, you see a lot of the things we’re trying to do, like go back to the Moon or onto Mars,” he says. “But we also have other areas that we work on. Earth science is a big area within Nasa, and climate change and climate control.
“We also have things that we’re working on within the area of supercomputing – we do a lot of research in aeronautics. We support a lot of development activity within different types of software applications and we’re undertaking pioneering work in medical areas, too.”
As acting branch chief, Meza is filling in for the permanent head, who will return at the end of the year. His primary role is to lead the agency’s exploitation of artificial intelligence and machine learning architecture and infrastructure across people resources, with the aim of enhancing and developing human capital processes.
“It’s about using these kinds of advanced data tools to identify various issues, metrics and analysis,” he says. “We’re looking around our workforce and trying to get a better handle on our workforce: do we have the right skills, do we have the right people in the right place, are we losing people, and what kind of skills are we losing?”
“I’m trying to discover and uncover answers from our data, to improve our use of our data and to help drive data-driven decisions”
David Meza, Nasa
That’s a big project for Meza and it requires him to draw on his vast experience, which includes 20 years at Nasa. He’s spent most of that time with the Johnson Space Center in Houston. For 10 of those years, he fulfilled the role of chief knowledge architect. Meza moved to Nasa headquarters in 2019 to take on his current role.
“I’m basically doing the same thing as I was as a chief knowledge architect, but it’s about specialising in the human capital domain,” he says. “I’m really just trying to enhance our capabilities and use the newer technologies that are available today.” Meza adds that the opportunity to find new answers to challenging questions is his key motivation.
“I’ve always been a technical guy,” he says. “I’m trying to discover and uncover answers from our data, to improve our use of our data and to help drive data-driven decisions. That’s about helping us to really understand and utilise data for good more than anything else. Data can be used for many different things, but to really use it to help understanding our workforce is key – and I really like playing with the data.”