Dunnington is NASA CIO

NASA has tapped Patricia Dunnington, its deputy systems chief, to take over as chief information officer for the space agency.

Dunnington had been deputy CIO since August 2002. She first came to work at NASA in 1982 as a presidential management intern in the Office of Aerospace Technology. She moved up the ranks of the agency's systems management, including a stint as CIO for the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Dunnington replaces Lee Holcomb, who left the agency last summer to work with the White House homeland security team and is now a member of the new Homeland Security Department systems staff. *