Jenn Gustetic is a senior executive with nearly 20 years of experience accelerating breakthrough science and technologies from lab to market. She is Director of Metascience and R&D Policy at the Institute for Progress, a Washington, D.C. think tank focused on scientific and technological progress, where she leads work on maximizing the return on American’s public R&D investment. Over more than a decade at NASA, she managed over $2 billion in early-stage technology investments spanning prizes, partnerships, and small business innovation programs—capital that helped seed companies and capabilities now shaping the commercial space economy. At the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, she designed global open innovation programs across sectors from health to energy.
A former member of the federal Senior Executive Service, Jenn received NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal (2025) and Exceptional Performance Award (2017), was named to the Fed100 (2024), and was a finalist for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal (2016). She holds a master’s degree in technology policy from MIT and a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida. She has completed a research fellowship at Harvard Kennedy School on the future of work and human-machine teaming and Stanford Graduate School of Business “VC Unlocked” Executive Education Program, and she speaks and publishes globally on science policy and innovation studies.
