May 19, 2021

Congratulations, Class of 2021. You all have worked extremely hard to complete your degrees and should be proud of all that you've accomplished over these past four years. As we celebrate commencement this week, we’re highlighting just a sampling of our new graduates who are heading out to change the world. We can’t wait to see what y’all do next. Hook ‘em!

photo of gilbert martinezName: Gilberto Briscoe-Martinez
Hometown: Houston TX,
Degree: B.S. Aerospace Engineering

Favorite Class: Orbital Dynamics

Favorite Professor: Tie between Chad Landis and Luis Sentis

Pandemic Hobbies: Baking Cookies at 2 am with one of my friends to give to people still trying to complete a massive homework assignment in the ASE.

Best Memory: Mountain Biking a lot of the trails in Travis County

Future Plans: Pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science focused in Human-Robot Interaction at the University of Colorado Boulder

 

photo of jennifer byrdName: Jennifer Byrd
Hometown: Boyd, TX
Degree: B.S. Aerospace Engineering

Favorite Class/Professor: Spacecraft Dynamics and Applied Orbital Mechanics, both with Dr. Brandon Jones

Best UT Memory: Every Thursday night of my third year, I would sit on the 3rd floor of the ASE building with a group of friends until around midnight working on Dr. Jones’ homework assignments after his office hours. There was a lot of work done on those nights, but also a lot of joking and fun times to be had as well.

Pandemic Hobbies: I relied on my boyfriend, my family and my cats a lot, especially during the beginning of quarantine. I also spent a ton of time on the phone with friends from school.

Future Plans: I’ll be moving to Maryland for a job with KBR. I will be a Fermi Spacecraft Operations Systems Engineer and I’ll be located at NASA Goddard Space Flight center for my work. 

photo of Hyeonseung Name: Hyeonseung "Shawn" Lee
Hometown: Seoul, South Korea
Degree: B.S. Computational Engineering

Favorite Class/Professor: COE 379L Simulation-Based Aerodynamic Design and Analysis with Dr. Fabrizio Bisetti

Best UT Memory: Witnessing the maiden flight of UAV Austin's autonomous aircraft Phoenix when I was the project manager from the team my sophomore year. 

Pandemic Hobbies: I started going on runs on a regular basis and picked up boxing to relieve stress.

Future Plans: I will be joining Blue Origin as a fluid systems engineer for the New Graduate Rotation Program. 

photo of Vishnuvardhan SelvakumarName: Vishnuvardhan Selvakumar
Hometown: Cypress, TX
Degree: B.S. Aerospace Engineering

Favorite Class/Professor: Dr. Leon Vanstone who taught the Rocket Engineering Practicum course. His multidisciplinary perspective to launch vehicle design and space exploration spoke volumes to the passion and camaraderie in this field.

Best UT Memory: Launching my certification rocket with the Longhorn Rocketry Association back in 2018. Although this was a great personal achievement, the best part about it was launching rockets with some of my closest friends and sharing these memories with them. 

Pandemic Hobbies: Working with the Texas Rocket Engineering Lab definitely helped keep me busy. I was lucky to be able to learn from such amazing students and mentors about leadership, rockets and so much more. I also made sure to spend time with friends by going hiking and camping, having bachelor nights and eating a lot of food.

Future Plans: This summer I will be working at SpaceX as an associate engineer with the research and development team for their Raptor engine. Immediately after, I will be attending Purdue University for my M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics with a focus on hypersonic propulsion and space system architecture research.