By: Caitlin Hanbury, VCU College of Humanities & Sciences
Once a computer engineering student learning coding and operating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in the lab of Robert Klenke, Ph.D., Jose Ortiz (B.S. ’08; M.S. ’10) now serves as the Avionics Technical Lead for Facebook’s Aquila project. Aquila, a solar-powered aircraft, seeks to bring the internet to remote regions of the world by beaming coverage from the sky. Ortiz said, “Facebook has provided a refreshing take to aeronautical engineering by allowing an environment where higher risks can be taken in order to create high impact systems to connect people.”