For a little over a decade, Kenneth “Kenny” Harris II has been working at Goddard Space Flight Center. Harris’s career has spanned from interning with NASA’s High School Internship Program at the age of 16 to working on five different satellite missions, assuming the role of senior satellite engineer and advocating for the importance of mentorship in the STEM field by age 27.
Now, 10 years after graduating from Eleanor Roosevelt High School (ERHS), Harris has been named to the Forbes 2020 list of 30 under 30 in Science for his work on the James Webb Space Telescope Mission, on which he was one of NASA’s youngest to integrate a satellite of that magnitude.
“It’s very humbling,” Harris said, thankful for all the opportunities given to him by his superiors and all of the support from his mentors growing up.
Humble Beginnings
Harris said that his father, who also worked at Goddard, was one of his biggest role models. “Watching him go to work every day and do what he loves, and spending time with him after work, was critical to where I ended up in the long term,” Harris said.
Before becoming a part of the Goddard team, Harris said that his first job was working as a janitor at Bowie High School. “I was scraping gum off the bottom of desks and cleaning out lockers,” Harris said, remembering that he’d waited until the last minute to look for a job after his parents’ prompting. After that summer, Harris applied to NASA’s internship program.
Harris was a part of the Science and Technology Program at ERHS for the entirety of his high school career. Living just outside of Greenbelt at that time, Harris remembered his four years as a high schooler fondly. “It’s funny, my favorite teachers weren’t even STEM teachers,” he said. Harris cited Hubert Willoughby, who teaches Spanish, and Troy Bradbury, who taught AP language and composition, as his two favorites. Both have been teaching at ERHS for about 19 years.
Ideal Student
Willoughby described Harris as “the ideal student,” saying that Harris was engaged and attentive both in his schoolwork and in his conduct.
“[Kenny] wasn’t there to get a grade, he was there to learn,” Bradbury said. “The part I remember most about him is that he was always the first to raise his hand and say, ‘I want to know about that’ or ‘what about this’ or ‘how would that apply?’ Rather than just believe everything I said, Kenny would question it.”
Bradbury said he also remembered that Harris always sat next to his best friend, Josh. Joshua Thomas, also an ERHS graduate and the District 2 Board of Education representative for a little over a year, said that their friendship has remained strong since middle school.
“I was always the shortest kid in the class,” Thomas said, laughing about his first impression of Harris. “But when I first met Kenny, I thought, ‘This is great.’ I had another short buddy with me.”
Thomas, who had been in the same magnet program as Harris in high school, said that he had enjoyed watching their friendship grow, listing some of his favorite memories with Harris: making goofy videos as the “Jower Rangers” in the late Johnnie Jowers’ engineering class, catching a ride home with Harris after school and, above all else, being a member of ERHS’s all-male step team, Dem’ Raider Boyz, of which Harris was co-captain.
“When I think about Kenny, he’s stayed consistent throughout the years,” Thomas said. “He was a high-achieving student who always prioritized work but also knew how to have fun and have a good time.”
And from Harris’s perspective, he said that the work has been fun since the beginning. “I would take four classes at [ERHS] in the morning and then spend the rest of the day at Goddard,” Harris said. Internships throughout his educational career led to college projects, both at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, which eventually turned into a full-time position at Goddard.
“I am still very passionate about what I do,” Harris said, saying that the only thing he does differently now is making himself more visible and accessible to younger students. “[That way] they can see what I’m doing in the field, see where I came from and, if they feel so obliged, try to mimic that as much as they can.”
Free Time
Harris’s personal passions extend beyond the STEM field. In his free time, Harris said that he can be found cooking at his home in Upper Marlboro or spending time with his wife, Heidi, and two dogs, Naamah and Silas. Harris also owns and operates a wedding photography company and enjoys traveling internationally.
“I’m a normal 20-something-year-old, in all honesty,” Harris said. “I’m just really into my work and I really want to make a difference in the STEM engagement field as a whole.”
Currently, Harris continues his work as lead database engineer on the Joint Polar Satellite System, sending commands to a satellite in Earth’s orbit to monitor natural disasters and provide local news stations with the daily weather.
Harris said that outside of the goal of his continual climb at Goddard is a burning desire to be an astronaut. When asked where he’d like to go, Harris said he’ll “shoot for the moon for now,” although his highest priority is still learning all he can in his current role on Earth.
Harris’s humility, work ethic, level of commitment and unwavering determination are what his friends and mentors said set him apart from anyone else they know.
“For someone [my] age, he’s accomplished so much, but would never make you feel like he’s aware of it,” Thomas said. “He does his job, but never makes you feel like that’s a greater thing than what anyone else is doing.”
Role Model
When reflecting on Harris’s achievement on being named Forbes 30 under 30, Bradbury said he’s earned it for all the right reasons and serves as a role model for African American men and women in engineering.
Bradbury said, “You can either look at [a field] and say, ‘There’s nobody like me, I don’t belong,’ or you can say, ‘There’s not many, but I can be one more.’ And I think Kenny embodies that positive mental idea where he can look at anything and say, ‘Yeah, there’s room for me.’”
When asked about what he’d say to an ERHS student who’s maybe working as a janitor and dreaming of space, Harris said the advice he’d give them is this: “Where you start doesn’t have to be where you end. Be bold, be vigilant for good mentors and make an impression on them that makes them want to pour into your life and make a difference. It takes a lot of hard work, but if you keep pushing forward, you can change your life.”
