John Conley is a spaceman in training.  After pursuing undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Arkansas, he participated in a series of internships at SpaceX and NASA Ames.  At SpaceX, John worked to build composite fairings for the first commercial launch to the International Space Station.  At the NASA Ames Academy, he researched long-term Mars settlement architectures under Dr. Pete Worden.  He is currently continuing that and other work in the Universities Space Research Association’s Education Associates Program at Ames after attending the 25^th Space Studies Program of the International Space University at the Florida Institute of Technology and the NASA Kennedy Space Center.  John will begin graduate school at Stanford in aeronautics and astronautics in the fall of 2012.  After graduate school, he plans to work in a technical role with government and industry to build humanity’s first permanent off-world settlements.  John also has entrepreneurial interests in space and other industries as well as political aspirations.  By pursuing multiple roles in space and other industries, he can continue the tradition of discovery pursued by the thinkers, scientists, and engineers who came before him to build the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.