Michael Shoemaker

I'm a 4th year junior working towards my BS in Aerospace Engineering. Soon I hope to begin some undergraduate research combining the SSSL and the VT CAVE. (stay tuned...) If you don't know what the CAVE is, basically it's the Holodeck from StarTrek, with a lot less Klingons and a lot more CS nerds (I kid because I love).

Besides that, I've basically been doing my best to avoid finishing school. I had 2 summer internships at TRW Aeronautical Systems. Last year I spent 6 months studying abroad in Japan. I did some robotics research related to space applications at Uchiyama Space Machines Laboratory at Tohoku Univesity in Sendai, Japan. And yes, the picture to the right is me being manhandled by a Colonel Sanders statue dressed as Santa Claus in front of a Japanese Kentucky Fried Chicken. How many people can say that?

When I'm not doing these things, I like to study Japanese, play video games, go backpacking, and I'm thinking about picking up snowboarding, which also means I'm thinking about getting a job to finance all of these things.