January 27th, 2024

On any given day, when a majority of college students are glued to their pillows; an alarm goes off: Quincy’s alarm. It’s 4:00 A.M PST and he’s off to school. Quincy is always the first one in the lab, wrapping up homework and strategizing propulsion before most of his peers brush their teeth.

Quincy’s abnormalities extend farther than his unorthodox wakeup call. As an aerospace engineer, Quincy balances one of the tougher course loads on campus, full of propulsion, aerodynamics and thermal transfer courses. On top of this, Quincy, or simply “Q” in the rocket lab, serves as the propulsion lead for the liquid team. Outside of the project, Q is involved in a variety of extracurriculars including his role as the President of NSBE @ UCI or the National Society of Black Engineers.

Q’s story is marked by diligence and guided by passion which preside over all of the exciting and early things he does.

You are involved in a ton of leadership roles! How did you start getting involved and why?

Quincy: By my third quarter I realized that I wanted to get involved in my community and on projects to get experience being a leader socially and technically. It was a really good experience because I really got the opportunity to talk to people. At NSBE I had the opportunity to help people out and at the rocket project I got the opportunity to build up my technical skills. My goal is to be multidimensional and to show all aspects of myself. I’m not just an engineer, I’m also a black student at this school, I also enjoy being a kid still and having fun.

This past spring you were a part of the UCI’s first methalox rocket launch. What was the week leading up to the launch?

Quincy: So starting that week, we felt like we were a little bit behind because our date to launch was that Saturday and we needed to get 3 more cold flows. At one point we felt like we were unable to make it out there. Yet, we were able to push through. I felt like there was a lot of anticipation because we felt like we had what we needed to do and just needed to do it. There’s a picture somewhere of me sleeping on a sofa in the lab in my hoodie just waiting for the cold flow. There were a lot of late nights leading up to it. When we finally got those down we felt like the launch could actually happen

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What are your hopes after college?

Quincy: I want to get a masters in Aerospace or  Mechanical engineering. Hopefully I can keep it local at UCLA, USC or UCI. After that I want to get into the industry. I have always wanted to be an astronaut so hopefully I can use my masters to do that well.