SB in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering, MIT
Before SSI
Right after graduation, I worked at Orbital Sciences for seven years on a variety of satellite and launch vehicle programs. It was supposed to be a summer internship, but I was having fun and just didn’t leave. Orbital was a small company at the time, full of young engineers, so I got all kinds of opportunities and responsibilities that I might not have gotten other places. I later got the chance to go work with DARPA and spent the next five years helping to develop revolutionary new space technologies, including one of the pathfinders for today’s growing satellite servicing marketplace. After that, and a year working on modeling and simulation for a large national security space system, I finally joined SSI in 2007.
How did you get into space?
I got into space because of the Challenger explosion, which happened when I was in junior high. We watched that awful video play over and over, and my classmates were saying “That’s so dangerous! I would never want to be an astronaut!” I thought about it for a while and said, “Actually, that’d be kind of cool!” I never did become an astronaut, but I’m so excited to know that some of the things that I’ve worked on have gone to space, and some are still whizzing around up there, so many years later.
Favorite Planet
I’m pretty partial to Earth, myself. I just like the atmosphere…
Favorite Hobby Outside of work?
I love to SCUBA dive, and have been lucky enough to swim with the fishes (and a few sharks) on the Great Barrier Reef as well as many Caribbean islands. That sensation of flying and weightlessness is as close as I’m likely to come to being in outer space unless I win the lottery.
