Dava J. Newman is Deputy Administrator of NASA, and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is best known for promoting the development of space activity suits, namely the Bio-Suit, which would provide pressure by tension in the suit's textile weave, rather than with pressurized gas. The suit is designed to help astronauts move around more easily than gas-filled suits allow. She is a former housemaster of MIT's Baker House.