Morgan Waltz

I grew up in a very small, very rural agricultural community out in the middle of Texas, where we could always see the stars and actually see the ISS pass over, which is one of the big reasons why I wanted to pursue spaceflight operations. Being an astronaut is something I've wanted my entire life - I even have a picture from kindergarten graduation where I was the only kid who dressed up as an astronaut. I started at Embry-Riddle for my Bachelor's of Science in Spaceflight Operations right after graduating high school in 2018, and graduated with my bachelor's degree in 2023. During college, I did research projects, was part of university clubs, and worked two jobs while going to school full-time to pay for rent and things like my dive certification and rental equipment. After graduation, I worked at Boston Whaler doing Quality Systems Administration in maritime, which taught me how operations translates over in manufacturing. Then I had a job at NASA for about a year, working as an operations planning console controller for the ISS program at Johnson Space Center. I got caught up in a reduction in force, but I didn't let that get me down - I kept going after new opportunities. I joined the NASA L-Space program and got my certification through them, and I became Vice President for External Relations for Media at Aerospace Career Transformation, which is a volunteer position but the organization is scaling quickly. I'm currently pursuing my Master's of Science in Spaceflight Systems from Embry-Riddle while handling four additional research projects and working with all the cohorts around the world from Aerospace Career Transformation. I recently presented a tutorial on law and policy for end-of-life operations and proactive orbital mitigation techniques at the AIAA conference in Washington, D.C., and I'm publishing a paper on that later this year. I'm also doing a project in Poland later this year through an astronaut analog called Lunaries Research, which is connected to the Polish Space Agency and the European Space Agency.