Jarah Meador, PhD, is the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Portfolio Manager at NASA, where she champions open innovation to solve complex aerospace and global challenges. With over twelve years of federal leadership, Jarah is an expert in leveraging open innovation approaches and public-private partnerships to drive innovation and collective intelligence. Before joining NASA, she led Challenge.gov at the General Services Administration, managing the federal-wide Prizes and Challenges Community of Practice. Her background also includes leading external innovation sourcing for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where she brokered multi-sector partnerships for artificial intelligence and healthcare initiatives. She began her federal career as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at USAID, directing global grand challenges. Dr. Meador holds a PhD in Cancer Biology from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She is also a veteran of the Air Force, where she served as an aeromedical evacuation technician.