Timothy Graves

Tim Graves leads one of The Aerospace Corporation’s largest engineering divisions, overseeing the software, cybersecurity, and data science work that protects U.S. national security satellites — and increasingly supports NASA, commercial space companies, and research institutions too. His team works across cloud architecture, edge computing, AI/ML, and space cyber resilience. Graves didn’t start out in software, though. He joined Aerospace in 2006 as an experimental scientist studying space plasma effects, eventually taking over the company’s Electric Propulsion and Plasma Science group. From there, he moved into high-stakes, customer-facing roles across the Department of Defense and intelligence community, managing satellite payload acquisitions and later becoming principal director for space resiliency and satellite protection. Before taking the helm of Aerospace’s software and cyber division, Graves ran the company’s Physical Sciences Laboratories, a 150+ lab research operation, where he grew R&D investment and staffing to speed up how fast lab breakthroughs reached real customers. He holds a Ph.D. in applied plasma physics from MIT and a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from Texas A&M.