Some background

Welcome! This is going to be a record of my professional (student) experiences related to space.

About me:
I'm currently 24 years old, and I'm about to graduate (in a couple days) from the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelors degree in Aerospace Engineering. I've worked for NASA for the last four years as a co-op and intern in different areas at Johnson Space Center and Ames Research Center. My first few posts will be about different projects during those work tours. At OU I've been the chair of our branch of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)for the last couple of years and have recently founded (what I hope will be called) the Sooner Space Society. My senior capstone has been work on the Sooner Lunar Schooner, OU's lunar rover mission. The real reason I started this blog was to keep a record of my time at International Space University, where I'll be going to grad school for a Masters of Science in Space Studies. Much more on that later.


As for my non-space-related time, one of the things I enjoy is martial arts. I started out with kung fu, and loved it, but due to a hectic engineering school schedule and a lot of moving between Norman and Houston, I wasn't able to stick with it over two years. When I was in Houston the first time, I started aikido, and through my time there I'm a brown belt in tomiki aikido. Also during that first tour in 2001, I started iaido, which is a katana (Japanese samurai sword) martial art. Iaido is based on the act of drawing the sword, cutting and responding to attacks, and returning the sword to the scabbard. The NASA/Clear Lake school is a branch of John Ray-sensei's The Dojo in Denton, Texas. For the 2004-2005 school year, Oklahoma was lucky enough to have a senior student from The Dojo move here and start teaching classes, so we have class at the Windsong Dojo in OKC.
Over Spring Break 2005, I demonstrated for my shodan (black belt) in this art.

Another one of my long-time activities is volunteering. Since 1997, I've volunteered at WildCare Foundation, a licensed wildlife rehabilitation center in Noble, OK. We accept wild animals that are sick, orphaned, or injured from the public and heal or raise them with the goal of releasing them back to the wild. In addition to being a direct care volunteer, I've also worked on the staff during three summers in the busy "baby season."


That covers the basics of how I spend my extracurricular time. Soon I'll be talking more about my past with the space program and the very cool things that are offered for college students to do. Later!