Dr. Trevor Sorensen

Born in Brisbane, Australia, Dr. Trevor Sorensen received his BS. (1973), M.S. (1976) and Doctor of Engineering (1979) degrees in Aerospace Engineering from University of Kansas (KU). He did his doctoral project on Pioneer Venus at NASA Ames. He then was a Space Shuttle guidance and control engineer for STS-1 and STS-2, worked in Mission Control as assistant Flight Director, and finally was a software engineering manager supporting Shuttle missions until 1987. He was CEO of a computer game publishing company, Interstel Corporation, which was an affiliated label of Electronic Arts. Interstel had published Empire, which was Computer Gaming World’s Game of the Year in 1988, and Dr. Sorensen authored three hit computer games, Star Fleet I, Star Fleet II, and Star Legions. In 1990 he joined Bendix Field Engineering (now Honeywell, Inc.) in Alexandria, Virginia, as Observations Manager of the Department of Defense’s LACE satellite. In 1994, Dr. Sorensen was the Lunar Mission Manager for the DoD/NASA Clementine lunar mission for which he received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. Dr. Sorensen was the program manager for the $23 million Space Systems R&D contract with the Naval Research Laboratory under which the USAF MSTI-3 satellite was operated. He was then the architect and technical director for Honeywell’s global satellite tracking and control system, DataLynx. Dr. Sorensen joined the KU Aerospace Engineering Department as associate professor 2000-2007. In 2007 he joined the University of Hawaii as a specialist professor and project manager in the Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society, a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and is on the AIAA Board of Directors as the Director of the Space and Missiles Group, which consists of 13 technical committees.