NASA Names CIONASA Names CIO

After a year-long search, NASA has named Linda Cureton as its new CIO, the space agency confirmed Tuesday.

Cureton will assume new post at NASA headquarters next week from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where she is currently the CIO. Cureton replaces Bobby German, who had been acting CIO at NASA. German will return to his former role as deputy CIO.

While at Goddard, Cureton has been a driving force in government adoption of social media, starting a popular blog, pushing the open source development of a social network for NASA called Spacebook, and becoming an active Twitterer.

She has also recently become an advocate of cloud computing in government, urging her fellow government CIOs to adopt cloud computing technologies in a blog post in March.

NASA is moving forward with a major series of IT services contracts called the Information Technology Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P) that will be worth more than $4 billion. According to the I3P Website, reviewing finalized RFPs for I3P will be among Cureton's first tasks. Cureton will also manage a number of other IT efforts as NASA's top IT official, including continued IT centralization and consolidation. She will also have some oversight over IT projects at NASA's space centers.

Before starting with Goddard, Cureton was the deputy assistant director of the office of science and technology and deputy CIO at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and held various CIO levels up to acting CIO of the Department of Energy. Earlier, she held IT positions in the Department of Justice.

information has published an in-depth report on leading-edge government IT -- and how the technology involved may end up inside your business. Download the report here (registration required).