After his term as interim president, he returned to his positions as professor in the College of Engineering and continues as the director of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study.
[7] Junkins grew up near the town of Dalton, Georgia, on his family's five-acre mini-farm, where he later attended North Whitfield High School and participated in the football and track and field teams.
[6] He began to be interested in Aerospace Engineering after watching the artificial satellite Sputnik make history during his Freshman year of high school in 1957.
His college roommate Spiros Pallas, who was also on the Berry track team, convinced him to come along on a visit to Auburn University, where Junkins was instantly impressed.
[10] While an undergraduate at Auburn University, Junkins began his career at the age of 19 as a co-op student during the Apollo program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Huntsville, Alabama, working with Wernher von Braun.
[11] While he attended graduate studies at UCLA, he maintained full-time employment at McDonnell-Douglas, where he supported numerous launches of satellites aboard Delta rockets.
[5] "My job will be to help navigate Texas A&M safely along our presently planned course and work with existing senior leadership and the faculty to solve problems as they arise until our new president takes the helm, hopefully by June.
He faced three unusual challenges: the COVID pandemic (not a single death), campus unrest following the George Floyd murder and an extraordinary winter storm.
After his term as interim president, Junkins returned as distinguished professor of Aerospace engineering and Director of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study.