Alexander MacDonald
Chief Economist
NASA
Alexander MacDonald is the chief economist at NASA. He was previously the senior economic advisor in the Office of the Administrator, was Program Executive of the International Space Station National Lab, and was the founding program executive of NASA’s Emerging Space Office within the Office of the Chief Technologist. He played a leading role in developing NASA’s Artemis and Moon-to-Mars strategies, as well as the Agency’s efforts to commercialize low earth orbit. He is a former executive staff specialist on commercial space at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a former research faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, and he has worked for the Universities Space Research Association while at NASA’s Ames Research Center where he worked on small satellite mission designs and served as the center’s first research economist.
