Zachary Gallagher Pirtle, Ph.D. is Deputy Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (CSPO) and a Professor of Practice at ASU’s Rob Walton College of Global Futures.
He has long served as a researcher and policy entrepreneur in Washington DC, with leading research in science policy, systems engineering and the philosophy of engineering. Previously, Dr. Pirtle studied in Mexico as a Fulbright Scholar researching science policy (2008); and served as a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academy of Engineering (2009). He is the co-chair of the steering committee for the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET), which has a mission to bring together philosophy and engineering for the mutual benefit of both.
Dr. Pirtle was a civil servant at NASA Headquarters from 2010 to 2026, with his final role being an engineer and program executive at NASA Headquarters in the Science Mission Directorate’s Exploration Science Strategy Integration Office (ESSIO). He led non-traditional commercial approaches to get science and technology payloads to the moon. He previously served as a program integration engineer in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. His work there supported integration for the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft and associated ground systems. He also served NASA’s Strategic Investments Division, providing technical, strategic and policy guidance for NASA’s exploration programs, and performed major programmatic assessments of the James Webb Space Telescope and Space Launch System. He was the study lead and first author for a report, Artemis, Ethics and Society: Synthesis from a Workshop. He was a 2020 winner of the NASA Agency Early Career Achievement Medal, the 2024 NASA Excellence in Innovation Award, and a 2025 Group Achievement Award for the Ethical, Legal and Societal Implications team.
He has been an adjunct professor for George Washington University's Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering and taught the graduate level Systems Engineering I class. He regularly speaks to science and engineering graduate students seeking to explore careers in science policy.