Summary
Materials scientist and aerospace metallurgist who spent more than 35 years at the center of American rocket engine propulsion research. Co-inventor of Mondaloy - a nickel-based superalloy engineered to operate in high-pressure, oxygen-rich environments without igniting - which became a critical component in the AR1 engine program designed to eliminate U.S. dependence on Russian RD-180 propulsion. Described by investigators as the only living person who knew the full Mondaloy manufacturing chain end to end. She disappeared without trace on June 22, 2025 while hiking the Mount Waterman Trail in Angeles National Forest, California, with companions from her yoga group. The investigation was subsequently transferred to the LASD Homicide Bureau Missing Persons Unit. Her disappearance became part of a broader pattern of missing or deceased researchers connected to advanced aerospace and propulsion programs that prompted a White House investigation in April 2026. Her professional connection to Maj. Gen. Neil McCasland - who commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory during the period when AFRL funded Mondaloy development, and who himself disappeared in February 2026 - is the primary link that has drawn attention to her case in UAP research contexts.
Roles
- -Director of Materials Processing, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2023-2025)
- -Technical Fellow, Materials and Processes Engineering, Aerojet Rocketdyne
- -Co-inventor, Mondaloy Superalloy (Rockwell Science Center, mid-1990s)
Organizations
Education
- -B.S. / B.A., Metallurgical Engineering, Columbia University (c. mid-1980s)
- -M.S., Materials Science, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1997
Early Career
- -Joined Rocketdyne (then a division of Rockwell International) in 1988 as a materials and metallurgical engineer shortly after graduating from Columbia University
- -Worked within the Rockwell Science Center research division in the early 1990s, focused on advanced alloy development for high-temperature, oxidizing environments in rocket engine preburners
- -Co-invented Mondaloy in the mid-1990s with Rockwell Science Center senior metallurgist Dallis Hardwick - the alloy's name is a portmanteau of both inventors' first names