FAIRMONT, WV – Chinese American Shirley Savarino, an employee with the NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program in Fairmont, West Virginia, was recently honored with the 2010 NASA IV&V Engineering Excellence Award.

NASA IV&V Chief Engineer Marcus Fisher, presented Savarino with the award and praised her for her dedication to developing and enhancing the program’s engineering approaches, and for her commitment to the success of NASA’s missions.

The NASA IV & V Engineering Excellence Award is the highest technical honor offered by the NASA program for which it recognizes its most valuable team players.

Savarino, is the daughter of Grant and Carol Tom of Rolling Hills Estates, CA. She earned her BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and her MS degree in Electrical Engineering from USC. She began her career in aerospace development at Delco Electronics and then at TRW Space and Electronics (now Northrop Grumman). Employed by TASC, Savarino currently works on the Mars Science Laboratory IV&V Project. This spacecraft is being built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and is scheduled to launch in November, 2011. She has been a part of the IV&V community since 2004 and has supported and led several NASA Flight Projects. She is regarded as an asset to the Program for her engineering skills, dedicated efforts and commitment to excellence.