Hume Center names Jonathan Black associate director of research for aerospace systems
Virginia Tech’s Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology has named Jonathan Black as its first associate director of research for aerospace systems.
Black will oversee the center’s growing portfolio of research in unmanned aircraft and spacecraft, including the design and construction of a new ground station to facilitate small satellite missions.
He will work at the Blacksburg campus and is actively pursuing research, development, and outreach activities with agencies and companies working in national security.
“To keep pace with the rapid growth of the Hume Center, we identified a need for senior leadership in the field of space and airborne platforms,” said center director Charles Clancy. “We welcome Dr. Black to the team, and eagerly anticipate his contributions in continuing our mission of educating the next generation of leaders in national security technologies through curricular, extra-curricular, and innovative research.”
Black is an associate professor of aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech and a member of the Center for Space Science and Engineering Research, also known as Space@VT.
Prior to joining Virginia Tech, Black served as an associate professor in the aeronautics and astronautics department at the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he was the founding director of the Center for Space Research and Assurance.
He focused on the center’s efforts on the execution of space technology development and scientific space experiments, and managed its annual $2 million research portfolio.
Located at the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at the Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg, and at the Virginia Tech Research Center at Arlington, the Hume Center leads research, education, and outreach programs focused on the challenges of the national security community.
Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $513 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.
