Charity Weeden is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. She brings more than twenty-five years of distinguished aerospace leadership across civil, military, commercial, and nonprofit sectors. Weeden is an advisor on technology policy, business, and geostrategic matters to disruptors across emerging technologies.  

As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy between 2023 and 2025, Weeden led a team of technology, policy, and economic experts dedicated to data-driven advice on critical investment decisions affecting national and international space priorities.  

Prior to NASA, Weeden was vice president for global space policy and government relations at Astroscale US between 2019 and 2023, where she orchestrated international and US domestic policy campaigns, shaping the future of in-space servicing rules, practices, and standards. Weeden was appointed as chair of the US Department of Transportation’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee from 2020 to 2022, leading recommendations on numerous topics affecting the US commercial launch and reentry community. 

Weeden’s unique perspective on technology and partnerships is informed by her twenty-three-year career in the Royal Canadian Air Force, where she served in roles centering on maritime domain awareness, space surveillance and communications, policy and doctrine, space operations, and aerospace alliances. Her military service culminated in space-to-space military engagements among Canada and allies in Washington, DC. 

Weeden holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada and a master’s degree in space studies from the University of North Dakota.