Meet the FIRST^® Alum Helping Shape the Future of Space Exploration

This spring, a record-breaking 51,000+ FIRST^® students, mentors, coaches, volunteers, educators, and sponsors joined us in Houston for the 2026 FIRST^® Championship presented by BAE Systems. Young innovators from around the globe came together to demonstrate their STEM skills, showcase their creativity, and celebrate the spirit of innovation.

Just a month before the FIRST Championship event, Houston played host to another remarkable display of STEM in action: NASA’s Artemis II—the agency’s first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years, guided from Mission Control at Johnson Space Center—successfully completed its journey, setting a new record for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth. Artemis II was a powerful reminder that humanity’s greatest technological breakthroughs still lie ahead, and that the next generation of rising engineers will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.

We caught up with Jenna Kay Foertsch, a Planning and Integration Specialist at Johnson Space Center and a FIRST^Ⓡ alum and current team mentor, who shared her thoughts with us.

FIRST Staff: Jenna, thanks for speaking with us! Before we talk about your role at NASA, can you tell us a little bit about the FIRST programs you’ve participated in, as a student and as a mentor?

Jenna: I was a student on FIRST^® Robotics Competition Team 3184 “Blaze Robotics” in Burnsville, Minnesota for only one year, but that was enough to get me [obsessed]. After that I became a mentor for Team 3184, and then when I moved down to Houston to work at NASA, [I became] a mentor for Team 118,“The Robonauts.”

In past years with Team 118, I primarily worked on our impact efforts, media, and our Everybot initiative. This year, I heavily focused on the Everybot initiative; at the moment I run our grant program through money given to us by the Argosy Foundation. This last year we granted over $100K to rookie teams to ensure they had tools. Securing that grant money meant a lot to me.

Working with the Robonauts has been the blessing of a lifetime. It very frequently feels like the students I have directly mentored have taught me just as much as I have taught them. Watching students come in as hesitant freshmen and leave eager to make a difference with the confidence and tools to do so is worth the time commitment. I get to teach students that caring is the coolest thing you can do. Care about other people. Care about the robot. Care about doing your best. Care about excellence. Care about the quality of work you are doing.

One thing I really like about “The Robonauts” is that we do our best to spread the wealth. I think all teams that have more resources should be putting forth a large effort to ensure other teams at competitions and across the community have resources to be successful. When one of us is better, we all get better.

FIRST Staff: How did FIRST influence your career trajectory and prepare you for the workforce?

Jenna: I love this story: Before I worked at NASA, a friend of mine, Barry, contacted me about a group called Citizens for Space Exploration (CSE). Barry is a fellow FIRST mentor, volunteer, emcee, and game announcer down near the space coast in Florida, and a program planner for the Orion spacecraft.

Representatives from Citizens for Space Exploration travel to Washington, D.C., annually to meet with members and staff to discuss the benefits of human space exploration. He had called me two weeks before they were flying to D.C. to speak with congressional members. Every year they take student representatives from each state to speak with that state’s congressional members about NASA and how the work benefits us down on earth.

He knew me from FIRST and thought I would be a good fit. At this time, I knew very little about NASA so, naturally, I said yes, of course I will fly to DC and learn everything I can about NASA in a week. This trip made me fall in love with NASA and the work they do has influenced the entire world. It was the perfect blend of technical work and outreach.

This trip was in May and at that point I made it my personal mission to work at NASA one day. Luckily for me, I got my first internship at NASA that same fall, and the rest is history!

More generally, FIRST makes you well rounded. I think because my job at NASA has been so variable, I needed the ability to learn new skills quickly. Even though I did not go to school for engineering, when thrown into heavily technical conversations I am able to keep up. I would like to think that a decade of being enveloped in FIRST culture aided that.

Jenna and Barry at FIRST Championship

Meet the FIRST® Alum Helping Shape the Future of Space Exploration

FIRST Staff: Jenna, thanks for speaking with us! Before we talk about your role at NASA, can you tell us a little bit about the FIRST programs you’ve participated in, as a student and as a mentor?

FIRST Staff: How did FIRST influence your career trajectory and prepare you for the workforce?

Meet the FIRST^® Alum Helping Shape the Future of Space Exploration

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