Associate Director in the Belfer Center’s Program on Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy
Rebekah Davis Reed, PhD, JD, LLM, is the Associate Director in the Belfer Center’s Program on Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy. In this role, she leads the day-to-day operational activities of the program, oversees the fellowship programs, leads the creation of new initiatives, and partners with the Director to set the strategic direction for the program identifying challenges and research priorities at the boundary of emerging tech and geopolitics.
Rebekah joined the Belfer Center in May 2025 after nearly three decades in the federal government. Rebekah spent most of her career at NASA, where she served in international relations, policy, legal, and technical leadership roles at NASA Headquarters and the Johnson Space Center. In addition to leading Management Integration and Planning for the Space Shuttle Program and serving on the agency’s Return to Flight Planning Team, she served as Counsel to the Flight IRB; Chief of the Space and Occupational Medicine Branch; Program Manager, Crew Health and Safety Program; and Associate Director of the Exploration Integration, Architecture, and Science Directorate at the Johnson Space Center. In her final position at NASA, she was the principal international advisor to NASA’s Associate Administrator for Exploration and served as Chair of the multilateral International Space Exploration Coordination Group. Rebekah began her career at the Foreign Agricultural Service, where she served on U.S. delegations to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and Food and Agriculture Organization; she also coordinated the sub-cabinet level Food Security Working Group, which developed the United States’ first global road map for food security.
Rebekah received a Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Georgetown University, where she was a University Fellow and Davis Teaching Fellow. She also holds JD and LLM in health law from the University of Houston Law Center, where she was a member of the Order of the Barons and the Order of the Coif, and was an adjunct professor of legal negotiations.
