And it's official..

The day has finally come at long last. I am now officially Eric M. Collins, PhD.

It has been such a long and arduous process that I'm finding it difficult to accept that I'm actually done. From the perspective of fulfilling a life-long ambition, it was well worth it. Now we will see if it was worth the delay in getting a real job and postponing all of those other things that grown-ups with a decent income get to do.

While I've still got a lot of work to do and papers to write, I also need to focus on looking for a job. I have until the end of the year to find something. I would very much like to get on with one of the new-space companies (e.g. SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc.), but I will also be looking into NASA and some of the national labs. If there is anyone out there who wants to hire a computational engineer with an intense interest in enabling technologies for exploration and exploitation of the space environment, please feel free to contact me.