LaSPACE Leadership Team

Colleen H. Fava

LaSPACE Director

Colleen H. Fava is the Director of the Louisiana Space Grant and NASA EPSCoR programs (LaSPACE) headquartered at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. She joined the LaSPACE team as Program Manager in 2012 and was promoted to Assistant Director in 2018. Colleen's degrees and professional experience are primarily in writing and communications. She has taught composition, creative writing, and literature at the college level, served as editor of two magazines, has worked in business development, proposal writing, and marketing in private industry, and has developed and run discipline-driven communications curriculum with university faculty members in STEM disciplines. Colleen's twin passions are effective communications and social justice. She channels these passions into the work she does with NASA Space Grant and EPSCoR as member of the national network and in her program development work in Louisiana. Colleen has primary responsibility for developing and implementing program opportunities for the LA NASA Space Grant portfolio and under the NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development (RID) award. Recently developed Space Grant programs include an undergraduate research program funded in partnership with Louisiana Sea Grant, a scholarship program for undergraduate student retention in STEM with a focus on professional development activities, and an under-development research fellowship for graduate students jointly funded by LA Sea Grant and in partnership with the Space and Sea Grant programs in North Carolina. A new program is also in development under the NASA EPSCoR RID award for summer support of Faculty and undergraduate researchers from Louisiana Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). On the national level, Colleen serves as co-chair of the National Space Grant Directors' Communications Working Group, runs a monthly webinar series for the national space grant community, and helps facilitate national online discussions and workshops for NASA EPSCoR researchers throughout the country. When she’s not at work, Colleen is a voracious reader, reluctant runner, and compulsive helper. She’s highly committed to her community and is usually on at least one volunteer committee or board. Colleen is married to her best friend, Jerry Peck; adores her stepchildren, Abby and Owen; and is a devoted pet-mom to two cats, Mr. Smartypants and Sophia Belle Babypants, and the world’s best doggy, Chuckleberry Hound.