Anna-Maria Rivas McGowan, Ph.D.

Strategic Executive Advisor, King’s Queue Design LLC

NASA Senior Technical Executive for Complex Systems Design (retired)

Dr. Anna-Maria Rivas McGowan is an aerospace leader, interdisciplinary design strategist, and complex systems innovator who has served in roles as a researcher, test engineer, instructor, spokesperson, project manager, and senior executive. As Strategic Executive Advisor at King’s Queue Design LLC (KQD), a global consultancy for strategic design of complex problems, she advises senior executives and boards, facilitates complex multi-organizational initiatives, and leads executive workshops and master classes across aerospace, defense, and deep-tech sectors. Dr. McGowan retired from NASA in early 2026 after a 33-year career, during which she was the agency’s Senior Technical Executive for Complex Systems Design. Her career included leading dozens of advanced-technology initiatives and programs (managing programs up to $100M annually) at NASA, DARPA, NSF, and NATO. She also served as the Acting Deputy Director for the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Program Office, assuming responsibility for a $650M annual program budget and supervisory responsibility for GS 14-15 staff. Dr. McGowan has delivered invited keynotes and short courses across multiple countries and consulted for national laboratories, major industries, and government agencies in the US and abroad. Dr. McGowan’s leadership forges an innovative, systems-based approach to complex, interdisciplinary challenges, integrating engineering and social sciences to deliver holistic solutions.

Her expertise is distinctly socio-technical: bridging aerospace and mechanical engineering with design and organizational science and connecting interdisciplinary research with real-world application. At NASA she co-founded the Inter-Agency Working Group on Engineering Complex Systems, facilitating executive-level collaboration across eight federal agencies, recently co-authoring a collaborative NASA Technical Memorandum. Dr. McGowan pioneered and implemented human-centered system design innovation for mission-critical systems at NASA, advancing engineering capabilities, driving organizational transformation across multiple directorates, and delivering societal impact, while maintaining strong time and cost discipline. Her work at NASA included managing and conducting fundamental to applied research in design science, organizational science, digital engineering, advanced manufacturing, advanced systems engineering, aeroservoelasticity, smart structures and materials, systems analysis and design optimization, adaptive flow control, and biomimetics, with applications spanning diverse aerospace systems and complex-systems challenges in other industries. She often infused the principles of high reliability organizing (HRO) and human factors with engineering rigor to create bespoke solutions to VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) environments.

Dr. McGowan now applies her expertise to KQD, bringing her interdisciplinary methodologies to a wider range of organizational, business, engineering, and societal challenges. Her work at KQD extends this socio-technical approach, combining human-centered systems thinking and forward-looking design at organizational and infrastructure scale, creating solutions that are technically sound and innovative while accounting for their human, business, and societal impacts. She has guided her high-stakes clients to strategic solutions and breakthroughs, including operational growth and resilience. Dr. McGowan continues to shape the field as lead of AIAA’s Design Engineering 2040 Vision effort, delivering invited lectures for academic and industry audiences through KQD, and serving as a doctoral committee examiner in engineering, design science, and organizational psychology.

Dr. McGowan holds a B.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University, an M.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Old Dominion University, and a Ph.D. in Design Science from the University of Michigan. She has been recognized with distinguished alumni honors from all three institutions — most recently Purdue’s 2025 Dean’s Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award, the highest honor Purdue bestows on its engineering graduates. She has also received NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal and is an AIAA Associate Fellow. Dr. McGowan is an active community volunteer whose Trinidadian heritage shapes the global, cross-cultural perspective she brings to her work.