Jessica D. Reid

Jessica Reid is a senior staff member in the Interceptor and Sensor Technology Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Her expertise spans multiphysics modeling and simulation and complex prototype system design and test. She has domain expertise across land, sea, air, and space. She is particularly interested in finding unique intersections of technology to enable novel solutions for challenging problems.

Reid joined the Laboratory in 2009 after working in industry on rocket technology for the Space Shuttle and Atlas and Delta space launch vehicles and working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity Mars rover missions. She has a cameo in the 2022 movie “Good Night Oppy” operating the rovers on Mars from mission control.

At the Laboratory, Reid has conducted research and development in the Engineering Division; Air, Missile, and Maritime Defense Technology Division; and Biotechnology and Human Systems Division. She has designed, built, and tested thermal systems for small satellites, space optical payloads, airborne platforms, and high-energy laser systems. She holds several patents for novel thermal technology. In 2016, Reid joined the Laboratory's Kwajalein Field Site, where she served as the technical lead for the Target Resolution and Discrimination Experiment and Ground Based Radar-Prototype radar systems and helped lead the effort to establish the site as a test bed for maritime autonomous systems and underwater sensing. Upon return to the Laboratory's main campus in Lexington, Massachusetts, Reid supported hypersonic efforts by developing models to analyze the communication system impacts of plasma surrounding a hypersonic vehicle. While researching plasmas and its effects on radio frequencies, Reid discovered an interesting link between earthquakes and the ionosphere. She started working with the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Systems Group to develop machine learning techniques to detect pre-seismic signals in the ionosphere for earthquake early warning. In 2021, she became assistant leader of this group. She was promoted to senior staff in the Interceptor and Sensor Technology Group in 2024.

Reid received BS and MS degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA degree in technology and space policy from the University of Colorado.