Colin Burnett (panelist) holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. As a graduate research assistant in the university’s Aerospace Systems Design Lab, he developed a flight software framework to support active debris removal from Earth orbit projects. He also completed internships with Anduril Industries, OXOS Medical, and ispace-US. His exceptional work during his undergraduate career caught the eye of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, who named him an Astronaut Scholar in 2022. After earning his graduate degree in August 2024, he joined Northrop Grumman as a systems engineer in the company’s Future Technical Leaders program.