Mary Sladek joined NASA as Manager for Informal Education in August 2007. For the past 18 years, she worked for the National Science Foundation, where she held education and outreach manager positions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education. Sladek entered federal service as a Presidential Management Intern.

Following her internship, Sladek was named program manager for the Presidential Faculty Fellows Awards and the NSF Young Investigator Awards in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, or EHR. She served as Contracting Officer's Technical Representative for several technical assistance contracts. As CoTR, Sladek supported many STEM education sectors, including informal, K-16, graduate, minority-serving institutions and education research, e.g., the Math and Science Partnership Learning Network, Research on Gender in Science and Engineering, and Research in Disabilities Education. She also ran EHR exhibits and outreach.

Several contract reports managed by Sladek are on the NSF website, including Final Report on the Evaluation of the Informal Science Education Program (NSF 98-65). She pioneered using the Web to survey progress of scores of NSF-funded education projects across the United States and shared an NSF Director's Award for Collaborative Integration (2004).

Sladek holds the Master of Government Administration degree from the Fels Institute of Government, University of Pennsylvania. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Connecticut, Storrs.