Joe graduated with highest academic honors from the University of California Santa Barbara with a B.S. in physics and is currently a 6th year PhD student in aerospace engineering at Texas A&M. His research focuses on analytical and geometric mechanics, Hamiltonian dynamics, and applications to astrodynamics. During graduate school Joe has had internships at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). In his free time, he enjoys traveling, outdoor expeditions, and reading.