Kenneth Hart

Kenneth Arthur Hart Jr. (Kip) is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. In 2007, he and his brother founded The South African Lacrosse Project, a non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of children affected by HIV through the sport of lacrosse. After graduating high school in 2009, Kip enrolled in the aerospace engineering program at the University of Maryland. In 2013, Kip received a bachelor's of science with honors in aerospace engineering and enrolled at the Georgia Institute of Technology to pursue a doctorate in aerospace engineering. He was also honored with the Aviation Week Twenty20s Award, in recognition of his leadership, community service, and scholastic achievements. At Georgia Tech, Kip began studying planetary entry, descent, and landing under Prof. Robert D. Braun. He developed a fast algorithm to predict the aerodynamics of low-earth orbiting satellites and created the aerodynamic database for the first satellite mission from Georgia Tech. In 2016, Kip joined the Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory to study under Prof. Julian J. Rimoli. His thesis topic, numerical simulation of thermal spallation, combines his passion for human space exploration with his talent for modeling and simulation. After graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Kip will pursue a career at Blue Origin.