Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

Dr. Derone Jenkins-Todd

This week another Tarleton Alum with ties to NASA is being featured. The Dick Smith Library's former student assistant, Dr. Derone Jenkins-Todd, currently works assignments for NASA. She is the daughter of Dr. Conley Jenkins, retired Tarleton Associate Professor of Mathematics, and his wife Myrna, who is also a Tarleton retiree.

A 1973 Stephenville High School graduate, Derone attended Tarleton State University from 1973-1975, and was a student worker in the mending area of the library. She received her BA from the University of Houston in 1977 and her PhD from the University of North Texas in 1992. After a career in training and development, she joined Barrios Technology, LTD. Houston, Texas, in 1991. While at Barrios, she has worked on several training development and engineering contracts at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Her most recent assignment is to the International Space Station (ISS) Program Office where she provides engineering expertise to teams that plan shuttle flights to the ISS. In fact, this summer Derone supported three NASA missions!

Among her activities, Dr. Jenkins-Todd presented to the Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee the program "Commercial Space Travel: Proposed Training Requirements". She is also a member of NASA's Space Flight Resource Management Program Development Team. SFRM is a successful human-error-management training program.

The photos from space and information and photos for the current astronauts from Texas for the summer NASA display in the Dick Smith Library were provided by Dr. Jenkins-Todd. Yea for Tarleton Alums and former library student assistants!