Jenna Foertsch

  • Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2019

  • University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, Business and Marketing Education, ‘20

  • Host Institution: XPRIZE

  • Mentor: Eric Stallmer

Jenna Kay Foertsch (She/They) graduated from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with a B.S. in Business and Marketing Education with an emphasis in Policy. Her love for STEM was discovered through participating in FIRST Robotics initially as a student, and now as a mentor for the Robonauts, a NASA FIRST Robotics house team. She is also a core member of the Everybot Initiative, a compilation of resources that level the robotics playing field by providing low-resource teams with competitive build plans

Before discovering their passion for aerospace, Jenna Kay was a blogger, freelancer, and innovator in the startup scene. Jenna notably specialized in creating viral products and researching trends under the now multimillion-dollar startup Wonghaus. Products that she has helped develop have gone on to be featured on popular websites such as Buzz Feed, Metro.co.uk, Product Hunt, and Tik Tok. Jenna Kay is now a freelance consultant where they help develop extensive business plans, assists with intellectual property needs, content strategy, creative initiatives, and content management systems.

In the past, Jenna Kay has interned for UTC Aerospace Systems and completed her first internship with NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the fall of 2018, where she was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award twice, presented based on ingenuity, innovation, and significant contributions within Johnson organizations. She specializes in data analytics, visualization, and multimedia components where her work is being used by senior leadership at the Center. She has done other internships at NASA in the Exploration Technologies Directorate and Public Affairs Directorates.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Jenna Kay worked at XPRIZE where they worked with both the marketing and impact and design teams. She did content creation for the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, the "Current Futures" anthology, and AI for Good. They also did research and analysis to create the foundation for the "Lost Children" prize design and impact road-map. Lastly, Jenna did industry scoping for the next potential space prize in 13 different aerospace domains.

Jenna Kay is a certified rocketeer and the founder and executive director of the Hot Nozzle Society, a movement within the high-power amateur rocketry community that seeks to break down the barriers that exist within the hobby, in order to make rocketry more accessible to new people, regardless of their rocketry or engineering skill level. Hot Nozzle Society seeks to create a welcoming and vibrant environment for those looking to enter or expand their knowledge of rocketry, regardless of age, race, gender, socio-economic status, and sexuality. In 2021, she was a keynote speaker at NARCON, the annual convention of the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), Founded in 1957, the NAR is the oldest and largest spacemodeling organization in the world with over 8,000 members and approximately 220 affiliated clubs across the U.S.

Jenna Kay now resides in Houston, TX at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where she works in the office of Planning, Integration, and Environmental. They also recently completed a rotation in the Robotic Systems Technology Branch.

Interested in contacting or working with Jenna Kay? 

Website: Jennafoertsch.com

Twitter: @Jennakaycosmic

Instagram: @Jennakaycosmic

LinkedIn: Jenna Kay Foertsch