Brooke Felts

Brooke Lynn Felts is director and Co-PI of NGA GEO-ESCON. In this role, she oversees all fiscal and business operations of the program, working to ensure success and growth of this important initiative. She works closely with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and GEO-ESCON academic partners to realize the ambitious goals of the program and build momentum toward its mission. Brooke is driven by connecting people and takes pride in building communities and sense of belonging in the programs she leads.

Brooke has been affiliated with The Ohio State University since 2015. During this time, she has established a robust skillset focused in consortium leadership and management, establishing workforce development programs, and in pre- and post-award grants and contract management. Brooke has an interest in team formation and grant writing, having supported several multi-institution research proposals. Prior to joining GEO-ESCON, Brooke was most recently the assistant director of the Minority Leaders Research Collaboration Program (AFRL ML-RCP), a six-year, $40 million dollar effort with nearly 40 participating institutions, which is a partnership between Ohio State and the Air Force Research Laboratory. The ML-RCP enables collaborative research partnerships between AFRL and Minority Serving Institutions and engages a diverse pool of talent to address foundational research challenges in support of the nation's air, space, and cyberspace technology needs. Before her AFRL ML-RCP role, she was the center manager of the Ohio State-led Manufacturing and Materials Joining Innovation Center (Ma²JIC), a National Science Foundation Funded Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (NSF IUCRC). At Ma²JIC, she managed and established new relationships between industry partners and the six participating universities — earning Ma²JIC the title of largest IUCRC in the nation by industry support.

As a first-generation college graduate, Brooke has a passion for increasing access to career training and degree pathways as well as ensuring retention and belonging in trainees from disadvantaged and underrepresented minority backgrounds. Brooke earned her bachelor’s degree from Denison University and her master’s from The Ohio State University John Glenn College of Public Affairs in 2014. She is passionate about continuing her education, and has participated in many trainings and certifications, most recently focusing on export control, grant writing, Strategic Doing™, and in building and advocating for diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice initiatives.