Kara Cunzeman

Systems Director for Strategic Foresight, Center for Space Policy and Strategy

Kara Cunzeman is a systems director for strategic foresight for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace Corporation. She is founder of the Strategic Foresight directorate at Aerospace and serves as its first systems director. In her role, Cunzeman leads an interdisciplinary team focused on applied strategic foresight, helping the enterprise adequately prepare its organizations and capabilities to proactively shape the future through innovative approaches across strategy, acquisition, science and technology portfolio management, policy, and operations. Cunzeman is an experienced professional who is a recognized, trusted advisor and transformative thought leader for executive leadership across government, academia, and industry. Cunzeman is a declared “mad scientist” by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), an active member of the Federal Foresight Community of Interest, and a frequent guest speaker.

Cunzeman joined Aerospace in 2015, and served five years with Aerospace’s Project West Wing, providing thought leadership and strategic insight into critical issues for the nation spanning global space advancements, technology development, and threat futures to a broad range of customers across the Department of Defense, intelligence community, and civil sectors.

Prior to working at Aerospace, Cunzeman held roles in space systems engineering, vehicle operations, and space sensor development at Raytheon and General Atomics. Before that, she was at Packer Engineering, where her contributions were key to winning Phase II funding via a NASA Small Business in Innovation Research (SBIR) award for extracting oxygen from lunar soil.

Cunzeman received her bachelor’s degree in multidisciplinary engineering and a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Purdue University. She is also a certified foresight practitioner and guest instructor at the Institute for the Future, the Center for Intelligence Studies, International Space University, and George Washington University.