Student: Matthew Ryan Joyner

• Ken Buday

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Matthew Ryan Joyner has one mission in life.

"My fundamental goal is to help people," the East Carolina University engineering major said. "I feel I can use the knowledge that I've gained in the field and through my education to ultimately help people."

Joyner is set to graduate in December with an electrical engineering concentration, but his journey to that degree is one that a Hollywood writer couldn't even imagine. Joyner should know, considering he initially wanted to be an actor.

"My goal in acting was to play a hero. I realized that I wanted to be a hero instead," he said. "I didn't want to just act like the hero, and I didn't really know what that meant or what direction to go after that. I just knew that's how I felt."

A cancer diagnosis at age 22 threatened to derail his new plans to get a college degree.

"Honestly, I'm grateful for it, which sounds insane," Joyner said.

As a deeply religious person, Joyner said God quickly answered his questions of why cancer, why him.

"Every night before bed I would pray that He would make me into the person that I'm supposed to be, and I think without that cancer, I would not be where I am today," he said.

Joyner endured surgery, nine weeks of chemotherapy and multiple checkups over the course of several years. At age 25 and cancer free, he decided to get that college degree, initially leaning toward psychology because "I was good at talking to people," he said.

A blank wall changed his trajectory.

"I had this really, really powerful moment where I was looking at a white wall, and it was so strange, but I understood for the first time what an atom was and how they worked," Joyner said. "And then I realized that there is nothing more fundamental in the world than physics and then nothing more useful than the engineering of those physics."

Joyner received a PIRATES scholarship (Providing Inclusive Residential And Transfer Engineering Support) and makes the drive from his home in Plymouth to take classes at ECU. Joyner somehow balances time with wife Haley, 7-year-old stepson DJ and 3-month-old son Roman with his coursework - and is quick to give credit where it's due.

"I couldn't do any of this without my wife," he said. "She quit her job to take care of the kids, so she is how I do it."

Joyner also found time to create a dating app, MingleMaps, that is scheduled to launch in January. He entered MingleMaps into the Aman Pirate Challenge, ECU's entrepreneurship pitch competition, and is one of 14 to advance to the second round. The app allows users to check in at public locations and meet other users in person rather than through texts or chats.

"It's meant to bring back social interactions because I think the dating app market is oversaturated with highly used and toxic environments," he said. "My app is meant to be a refreshing new look on how things should be done when applying digital means to a physical connection."

This summer, Joyner accepted a Department of Defense Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) award. The workforce development program provides full college tuition, annual stipends, summer internships and, after graduation, guaranteed employment with the Department of Defense. He'll repair aircraft and retrofit aircraft parts at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.

"When I was a kid, actually I wanted to be a fighter pilot," he said. "I couldn't because of my vision, and so I thought it would be really cool to work on planes. I've been pretty patriotic my whole life, so that combined with my goals and my values, it feels as if I'm being pushed in the right direction."

Joyner's direction has been far from a straight line, and he's OK with that. He said he's where he's supposed to be and he encourages others like him who found college later in life to get that degree.

"Don't be scared to go back to school no matter what age you are," he said. "That was something that was in the back of my mind for sure when I went back. You just have to be brave, bite the bullet so to speak, and go for it."