Joshua Jenkins, a Graduate Student in Aerospace Engineering from Winchester, Virginia, has been involved with CEED since his freshman year at Virginia Tech when he was a member of the Galileo community as a Dean’s Scholar. Joshua served as a member in the professional development committee as a sophomore and chaired the committee the following year. Jenkins’ senior year, he served as a member of the InVenTs Leadership Team and worked on a yearlong project to stimulate local entrepreneurship by hosting joint events involving the InVenTs and Innovate Entrepreneurship living learning communities. Currently, Jenkins is a GTA for the first year Galileo class and oversees the transition of community students from high school to college.

Jenkins determined he was destined to pursue Aerospace Engineering when he was assigned a project on Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel to space. Today, Jenkins is continuing turning this dream into a reality by staying at Virginia Tech to focus on guidance, navigation, and control of spacecraft in graduate school. In the fall of 2013, Jenkins expressed this passion in his TEDx talk “Launching Lemons into Space”.

Jenkins has spent his summers at a variety of internships ranging from corporate giant GE Aviation to more local aerospace businesses like Aeroprobe Corporation and AVID LLC. Over the course of his undergraduate experience, Jenkins has been involved with campus based organizations like AIAA, the Atmospheric Teaching Experiment (ATEx), VT SEDS, Dean’s Technology Council, VT Microgravity, Entrepreneurship Club, Kairos Society, the College of Engineering Graduate Recruitment, MMA Club, and the APEX Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Volunteering has been a core aspect of Jenkins’ undergraduate career. Prior to college he was deeply involved in a Google Lunar X Prize competition team vying for a chance at a $30 million prize for landing a robotic rover on the moon. This experience lead Jenkins to the Space Frontier Foundation. Jenkins has served on the policy, communications, and conference planning team for the organization including a position as the NewSpace2015 day manager. Jenkins also runs his own Space Advocacy group “Students on Capitol Hill” that provides students the opportunity to lobby Congress for policies that promote sustainability of space activities and human settlement.

Jenkins is an avid adventure seeker as enjoys a multitude of outdoor activities including kayaking, hiking, running, weight lifting, and wrestling/jujitsu, but his favorites are spelunking and snowboarding. Jenkins actively pursues these activities for the adrenaline rush and sense of exploration he receives. He believes that these examples are the closest terrestrial experience he can have while he eagerly awaits the day where he can be a member of the efforts that push forward the human frontier into space. Upon graduation in May of 2017, Jenkins will be continuing his adventure out in Denver, Colorado working for United Launch Alliance. Jenkins will be developing trajectory optimization systems for the Atlas, Delta, and Vulcan families of launch vehicles.