Race to 100 Alumni

Joseph Joyce

KCC Class of 2011
Major: Physics
Current Title/Profession: Flight Safety Analyst at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility

Nominated by: George Nicolaidis

Joseph Joyce's journey to becoming a flight safety analyst for NASA was far from the traditional route. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and his academic career began with a rocky start. Joseph had enrolled at Brooklyn College straight from high school without a clear career goal in mind. He soon ended up pressing pause on his college career after deciding that college was not for him. This turned out to be a fateful decision, as Joseph's story did not end there.

At the age of 22, following encouragement from family, he enrolled at Kingsborough, and chose to major in physics as he wanted to challenge himself. While at KCC, Joseph found himself inside a supportive community of brilliant, passionate professors who nurtured his growing love for math and science. "The physics program really was amazing there," he says. “My professors in physics and beyond at KCC had so much passion for their fields, and they just wanted to kindle that spark in all of their students, something that you don’t get from traditional 4-year colleges.”

One professor in particular, Dr. Jay Mancini, had a profound impact on Joseph. "Dr. Mancini is the professor who really sparked my desire to keep learning," he says. "I would often go to his office when he was free, just to talk about anything and everything. He cares so much for his students, and it really shows. That kind of passion is contagious, and it gave me the love for math and science that I will protect deep within my heart and mind forever." Joseph credits Dr. Mancini with teaching him a valuable life lesson: "A physicist can do anything. It might take them a few extra steps to achieve the same goal as someone who is specialized in a specific field, but a physicist can eventually solve any problem."

Armed with this newfound confidence and a stellar academic record at KCC, Joseph went on to earn a bachelor's degree in physics from the City College of New York and a master's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Syracuse University. Today, he works as a flight safety analyst at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, where he plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety of NASA launches.

Joseph's primary duties include conducting pre-mission flight safety analysis of launch vehicles and quantifying the risk to the public for every launch that NASA Wallops oversees. During operations, he serves as an operations safety risk analyst, setting boundaries on how a day-of launch should be conducted to minimize risk to the public. He finds his position both challenging and rewarding, as his job requires a deep understanding of mathematics and physics and a responsibility to keep people safe.

Despite his impressive achievements, Joseph remains humble and grateful for the opportunities he has been given. "My biggest personal achievement is making my parents proud before they died," he says. "Professionally, my biggest achievement has been receiving the Robert H. Goddard Award from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for the work that my flight safety team did to ensure that the most recent Super Pressure Balloon campaign was conducted safely out of Wanaka, New Zealand."

Joseph most enjoys finding solutions for practical problems and even more so when those solutions lead to more science. Joseph acknowledged that “without Kingsborough, I don’t know where I would be right now. I know for a fact that I would not be a safety engineer working for NASA.” When he is not working, he likes to spend his time being creative. His passions include amateur filmmaking, gardening, and creating pieces to submit to local art competitions. He also enjoys going on weekend photo expeditions throughout the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia area he now calls home with his wife, who is a gallery director.

For students just starting out on their college journey, Joyce offers this advice: "It's alright to not understand what you want to learn… Practice and time will make you an expert in anything that you want to be an expert in and it’s alright if you change your mind. Don’t stop learning and growing.”