William Pomerantz is an explorer with a lifelong dedication to space exploration. He currently serves as the Vice President for Special Projects at Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. In that role, William helps extend Virgin Galactic’s business beyond suborbital space tourism, developing efforts such as the LauncherOne orbital launch vehicle for small satellites as well as suborbital research campaigns on board SpaceShipTwo. William also serves as a Trustee and the Chair of the Board of Advisers for the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS), the world's largest student space organization; as co-founder of the Brooke Owens Fellowship Program, mentorship and paid work experience program for exceptional undergraduate women seeking a career in aviation or space exploration; a member of the Editorial Board of ROOM, a Space Journal; as an advisor to WayPaver Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to pushing the boundaries of human exploration; and as a member of the Professional Development Committee of Women in Aerospace.
Prior to joining Virgin Galactic, he worked at the non-profit X PRIZE Foundation, the world's leading incentive prize organization, where he served as the primary author and manager of the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE and the $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander XCHALLENGE. Will has also worked at Brown University, the Futron Corporation (now a part of Avascent), and the United Nations, and was the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of SpaceAlumni.com, an early social network for space professionals. He previously served on the Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee and on a National Research Council committee studying issues impacting the national aerospace workforce.
William is a graduate of Harvard University, the NASA Academy, and the International Space University. William is married to Mrs. Diana Trujillo Pomerantz, a Mission Lead for the Mars Science Laboratory mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. William and Diana both also work as serve as coaches for the Zero Gravity Corporation, the world's only commercial provider of weightless parabolic flights. To date, William has logged approximately one hour of weightless time.
William is a frequent public speaker, and has been published in numerous periodicals. He is also the author of a chapter in the text book Space Commerce.