First Place: Ms. Jennifer Eisenman, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “Over-the-Horizon Radar Phenomenology Measurements”
Second Place: Dr. Chad Waddington, Air Force Research Laboratory, “Finding the Tiger Paw: An Application of a New RF Source Localization Method”
Third Place: Mr. Wayne Dietel, Pugh Associates, LLC, “Mark (MK) 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) Overview”
David M. Altwegg Lifetime Achievement Award
Click here to submit your Lifetime Achievement Nomination
We are now taking nominations for the second David M. Altwegg Lifetime Achievement Award. The nomination consists of a two-page write-up addressing the candidate's embodiment of the criteria below. Nominations submitted before August 15th 2018 will be considered for award at the February 2019 Symposium.
The David M. Altwegg Lifetime Achievement Award recognized and honored an individual from Government, Industry, or Academia, who has made significant contributions to the Fire Control community, thus strengthening national defense and benefiting the warfighter over a period of time greater than 20 years. Nominees should exemplify the following traits:
The first David M. Altwegg Lifetime Achievement Award was presented posthumously to David M. Altwegg at a ceremony during the 2018 NFCS Plenary session.
RADM Jon Hill, Deputy Director of MDA sharing some personal stories about Mr. Altwegg after receiving the award on behalf of the Altwegg family while Dr. Gary Somers, Raytheon; Mr. William Bray, DASN (RDT&E); and Mr. Michael Roberts, Director Development and Integration, PEO IWS look on.
This award is named after Mr. David Altwegg who served in the US Navy on active duty and civilian federal service for a combined 64 years and exemplifies the meaning of lifetime achievement. He received a Bachelor's degree in engineering from the Naval Academy in Annapolis and a Master's degree in engineering from MIT. He enlisted in the Navy in 1947. While on Active duty, RDML Altwegg as Command Task Force 60 (CTF60), the Mediterranean fleet, developed, trained and implemented a new fleet defense AAW concept that became known as Forward Pass. He was ultimately promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral Upper half retiring from active duty in 1985. He then served the country for another quarter century as part of the Senior Executive Service retiring in February 2011 and then passing away shortly thereafter in April 2011. He was a founding member of the National Fire Control Symposium and served on its Executive Panel.
Mr. Altwegg was a pioneer in Naval fire control - a driving force behind creating the Forward Pass CONOPS, acquiring interceptor missiles, creating the Aegis fleet, and setting-up ashore infrastructure that led to NIFC-CA. He defined the modern acquisition spiral development approach as the MDA Executive Director. Throughout his 64 year career serving the DoD, RADM Altwegg left his mark on technologies, tactics and people. The National Fire Control Symposium itself is a testament to RADM Altwegg's belief that people and knowledge are imperatives.
Early Career Award
The Early Career Award recognizes an "early career" presenter/author for making meaningful contributions to the Fire Control Community. Those new to the field in the last 7 years delivering and authoring an oral presentation are eligible for consideration of this award.
The Early Career award criteria are:
First Place: Dr. Matthew Gombolay, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “Enabling Battle Management via Machine Learning Models of the Human Pilot”
Second Place: Dr. Christopher Valenta, Georgia Tech Research Institute , “Real-Time Atmospheric Characterization for High Energy Laser Fire Control”
Third Place: Mr. Ryan Scheidt, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, “Expanding the Battlespace Through Multi-Beam Communications Scheduling and Routing”
Third Place: Ms. Olivia Brown, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “Robustness of Combat ID Systems to Adversarial Perturbations”
First Place: ENS Sam Lacinski, U.S. Navy, “Assessment of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Boost-Phase Intercept of Ballistic Missiles”
Second Place: Mr. Michael Molignano, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “Softkill Weapon Coordination for Ship Defense”
Third Place: Dr. Monica Montanari, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “Long-Range Doppler-Spread Clutter Mitigation in Over-the-Horizon Radars”
Poster Award
The 2019 National Fire Control Symposium will once again present a Peer Reviewed Poster Award. All attendees will be able to cast their vote for the three best overall NFCS posters.
Congratulations to our 2018 Poster Winners!
First Place: Dr. Samantha Weiss, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “A Dynamic Programming Approach to the Pursuer-Evader-Decoy Problem”
Second Place: 1st Lt Robert Gutierrez, Air Force Research Laboratory, “Weaponeering in Augmented Reality”
Third Place: Mr. George Kakas, Air Force Research Laboratory, “Survey and Evaluation ELINT and ESM Systems with Integrated Photonics”
Congratulations to our 2017 Poster Winners!
First Place: Mr. Marc Santoro, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, “Agile Cybersecurity: A Modest Proposal”
Second Place: Mr. Samuel Lacinski, MIT Technology and Policy Program, “Assessment of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Boost-Phase Intercept of Ballistic Missiles”
Third Place: Ms. Katherine Souza, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, “Lasercomms System for Mobile Terrestrial Applications”
Congratulations to our 2016 Poster Winners!
First Place: Ms. Emily Anesta and Mr. Adam Schnabel, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “Real-Time Characterization of the Atmosphere in Support of Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW)”
Second Place: Mrs. Carol Lee, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, “Cyber Defense Vulnerability Insight Laboratory (Cyber Devil): Moving the Culture of Software Development toward Security”
Third Place: Mrs. Anu Myne, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, “The Broadband Challenge for Next Generation Electronic Warfare”