Jonathan Black, associate professor of aerospace and ocean engineering in the College of Engineering and associate director of research for aerospace systems at the Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology at Virginia Tech, has been named Northrop Grumman Senior Faculty Fellow by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The Northrop Grumman Senior Faculty Fellowship was established through a gift from the Northrop Grumman Corporation. The fellowship enables Virginia Tech to offer support to a College of Engineering faculty member who is a core member of the Hume Center and who specializes in command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (also known as C4ISR). Recipients retain the fellowship for a period of three years.

Black joined Virginia Tech in 2014 as an established researcher in space technology development and scientific space experiments. He also has comprehensive knowledge of Department of Defense and intelligence community organizational trends, missions, inter-relationships, operations, research and collection methods, techniques, and practices of space systems and satellite acquisition programs.

At Virginia Tech, Black has established a research program that intersects Center for Space Science and Engineering Research and the Hume Center. His research focus includes national security applications of smallsats; mission-oriented satellite constellation design; spacecraft bus engineering and orbital dynamics; advanced lightweight aerospace structures, airborne autonomous vehicles; command, control, and communications for aerospace systems; cognitive mission management; joint optimization of platform and payload scheduling; engineering design for system payloads; payload size, weight, and power constraints; and advanced sensing technology.

Black received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, a master’s degree from George Washington University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky.

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.

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