Joe Hankin grew up in Washington D.C. suburb of Gaithersburg, MD. He Attended Towson University outside of Baltimore for his Freshman year on an honors scholarship. After that, he finished his undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland College Park where he majored in Computer Engineering. After college, he immediately began working for ITT Exelis writing firmware for next generation communication devices for special forces units. From there, he took a software engineering position at Applied Physical Sciences, a subsidiary of General Dynamics and Electric Boat, where he worked on various contracts for DARPA, Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC). He was the lead firmware developer for an underwater vehicle Lithium-Ion battery system engineered to the strictest safety standards for use on submarines. In 2020, Joe received his M.S. in Computer Science from the Colorado School of Mines. While at Mines, he performed research as part of the Human Centered Robotics Lab on Multi-Agent Robotics Systems; he developed a decentralized learning algorithm for optimized and adaptable behavior across multiple robots working on shared resources in dynamic environments.

Joe began his career at Vita in Fall of 2019 as an embedded software engineer where he quickly grew into a team leader. He now uses his experience as Vita’s Lead Systems Engineer, to design safe and efficient products. He currently lives in Arvada, CO with his fiance Jordan Card and two dogs. Joe met Jordan at School of Mines while they were both in the Master’s of Computer Science program. She now helps lead the Cyber Security Operations Center at School of Mines. They enjoy hiking, biking, and being self-described foodies in search of great spots to eat.