IDA Research Staff participate actively in various professional activities – both within their disciplines and ancillary to them – including publishing in the open literature. Below are some recent citations of IDA Researchers and their work.
The January 12 issue of the The Economist(Open external link) cited an article that STPI’s Shirley Han coauthored; “China’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research environment: A snapshot(Open external link),” published in PLOS ONE (April 18, 2018). The article argues that the current direction of education and inquiry in China is turning inward, away from openness that is central to innovative thinking.
SFRD’s Michael Guggisberg and Amrit Romana recently developed an R package “BiProbitPartial(Open external link)” as an IDA CRP; it is now publicly available on the CRAN repository. The package provides a suite of functions to perform frequentist and Bayesian estimation and prediction using the bivariate probit with partial observability model.
David Mussington, an adjunct research staff member in ITSD, delivered a plenary talk at the December 3 Penn State Symposium on Election Security(Open external link). He addressed election cybersecurity, cyber conflict, and U.S. national security. A professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and former member of the Obama Administration National Security Council Staff, Dr. Mussington was one of dozens of experts from across the country.
IDA congratulates SFRD Research Staff Member Tom Wallace on completion of his MS in statistics from George Mason University through the IDA Scholar Award program. He is also pursuing a PhD in Computational Social Science from GMU through the IDA Scholar program.
On December 12, JAWD researchers (pictured from left to right) Meg Barber, Bill Sorrells, Mark Phillips, and Kevin Woods briefed the Defense Science Board Task Force on Gaming, Exercising, Modeling and Simulation (GEMS) on related studies and perspectives on the utility of GEMS in strategic and operational planning. JAWD RSM Sue Numrich and founding JAWP Director and current IDA consultant Ted Gold are task force members.
Edward R. Jayne, Trustee Emeritus of IDA’s Board of Trustees, was named one of the Air Force Academy’s four Distinguished Graduate honorees for 2018(Open external link). The award recognizes alumni who have set themselves apart by making a lifetime of significant contributions to our nation and their communities.
IDA congratulates JAWD Research Staff Member Jessica Huckabey on completion of her PhD in history through the IDA Scholar Award program. Her University of Leeds (UK) dissertation was “Sea power rivalry: The influence of Admiral Gorshkov on American Naval Thought, 1963-1985.”
On January 7, IAD’s Stephanie Burchard, with coauthor Stephen Burgess, published “U.S. Training of African Forces and Military Assistance, 1997–2017: Security versus Human Rights in Principal–Agent Relations(Open external link)” in the journal African Security. The article was prepared as IDA publication NSD-9068.
On, December 4, the White House National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education released a five-year strategic plan, “Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for STEM Education(Open external link).” STPI researchers supported the development of this plan through research and analysis of existing and previous Federal STEM programs; facilitating writing team sessions with a wide variety of Federal stakeholders; assisting the teams with writing and document structure; and incorporating feedback into the draft plan.
Dr. Chu announced by Staff Notice that Ms. Jean Conley will take office as our next Chief Financial Officer in late January. Dean Graves will transition to a new role as Director, Special Projects.
SFRD’s Peter Levine will speak at the 4th Annual West Coast Aerospace Forum(Open external link), which will be held at RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, on November 30. He will sit on a panel on defense acquisition and innovation. His talking points are based on a War on the Rocks article(Open external link), originally produced as IDA Publication NSP-9267.
OED’s Laura Itle discussed IDA’s SAFETY Act work on securing soft targets during a panel at the Women Leaders in College Sports National Convention(Open external link) in October. The panel is summarized in an article, “Learn How SAFETY Act Can Help Protect Athletics Venues(Open external link),” in College Athletics and the Law, published November 13.
SFRD’s Michael Fitzsimmons discusses the impacts of the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in this new article “Russian Strategy and the End of the INF Treaty(Open external link)” published by the journal Survival. (Dr. Fitzsimmons is currently on an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignment with the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute.)
The November 18 issue of SpaceNews quotes STPI Researcher Bhavya Lal and cites IDA Publication Global Trends in Small Satellites(Open external link). Speaking at a November 15 Space Foundation panel on Capitol Hill titled “The SmallSat Revolution,” Dr. Lal observed that when the smallsat movement started, the thinking was the major support by the government wasn’t going to be needed; that’s turning out not to be the case. Other panelists included Steve Nixon, president of the SmallSat Alliance, Chirag Parikh, deputy director for counterproliferation at National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), and Karen St. Germain, director of systems architecture and advanced planning at National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA).
STD’s Dave Sparrow and CARD’s David Tate recently spoke at three key events – a Center for Strategic and International Studies(Open external link) panel at the release of their new report Artificial Intelligence and National Security: The Importance of the AI Ecosystem(Open external link), which cites three separate IDA papers co-authored by Dr. Sparrow and/or Dr. Tate; a U.S.-UK Technical Exchange Meeting; and a Verification of Autonomous Systems working group meeting related to the Department of Defense’s prioritization of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy.
ITSD’s Randy Simpson received the Best Paper Award of the 2018 International Conference of Information Security and Internet Engineering. Enterprise End-point Device Management(Open external link), co-written by ITSD’s Kevin Foltz, was prepared as IDA NS D-8871. Dr. Simpson presented the paper at the conference in London in July. Dr. Simpson also received the Best Oral Presentation at the 8th International Conference on Electronics, Communications and Networks (CECNet2018) in Bangkok Thailand.
JAWD’s Sue Numrich will be named the 2018 I/ITSEC Fellow(Open external link) at the organization’s conference in Orlando at a Signature Event on November 26. As a Fellow, Dr. Numrich authored this year’s Fellow’s paper and presentation – Lessons Unlearned: Barrier or Key to the Future? – prepared as IDA publication NSD-10307. I/ITSEC is an international conference with attendance of about 15,000 technical and military personnel.
STPI’s Asha Balakrishnan spoke at a new professional development course(Open external link) on space security and space policy issues from the CSIS Aerospace Security Project on November 7-8. She led a discussion on Space Situational Awareness and Space Traffic Management.
The 2018 Welch Award winning team of ITSD’s Michael Fischerkeller and Dr. Richard J. Harknett of the University of Cincinnati (not pictured) published their latest article “Persistent Engagement and Tacit Bargaining: A Path Toward Constructing Norms in Cyberspace(Open external link)” in the November 9 issue of Lawfare, an online blog dedicated to exposing hard national security choices.
SFRD’s Peter Levine was interviewed(Open external link) on November 5 about his latest paper on DoD financial management and the defense audit by radio show host Michael Keegan. In it, Peter relates the history DoD’s 30-year failed effort to achieve an auditable financial statement. He argues that the Department has gone about it wrong.
IDA researcher Bhavya Lal discussed policy considerations(Open external link) for satellite servicing as a panelist at the CONFERS 2018 Global Satellite Servicing Forum on November 8. CONFERS is an industry-led initiative to leverage best practices to research, develop, and publish nonbinding, consensus-derived standards for on-orbit servicing and rendezvous proximity operations.
STPI researcher Ian Simon was elected last Tuesday to DC’s Ward 2 Advisory Neighborhood Commission(Open external link). As a Commissioner, he will represent the views of residents of in his Single Member District (SMD). Established in the 1970’s, ANCs are made up of locally elected representatives to make sure each neighborhood is well-served by District government. After deliberation and votes, the ANC advises the Mayor, City Council, and executive agencies in local matters such as parking, zoning, traffic, liquor licenses, and permits. Congratulations, Ian!
STPI’s Jason Gallo was an invited speaker at the European Commission and Executive Committee of the Arctic Observing Summit to present at the Towards a Roadmap for Coordinated Arctic Observing meeting during the second Arctic Science Ministerial in Berlin in October. His talk was based on IDA Group Report NS GR-8509(Open external link) and subsequent STPI analysis. STPI’s work was cited in various presentations at the meeting in a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, “Impact Assessment Study on Societal Benefits of Arctic Observing Systems(Open external link),” which was released during the meeting in Berlin.
ITSD’s David Wheeler spoke on November 5 at the High Integrity Language Technology (HILT 2018) Workshop in Boston on Languages and Tools for Ensuring Cyber-Resilience in Critical Software-Intensive Systems. His talk was on “Approaches to Cyber-Resilience through Language System Design(Open external link).” ITSD’s Clyde Roby moderated the session.
STPI’s Bhavya Lal was nominated for a second 2-year term to be part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing (ACCRES). ACCRES was established in 2002 to provide information, advice, and recommendations to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere on matters relating to the U.S. satellite commercial remote sensing industry and NOAA's activities to carry out the responsibilities of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
STIP Director Mark Lewis received the Air Force Association Theodore Von Karman Award for the most outstanding contribution in the field of science and engineering. The award was presented on September 17 at the 2018 Air Force Association’s 2018 Air, Space & Cyber Conference Opening and Awards Ceremony at the Gaylord in National Harbor.
ITSD’s Serena Chan moderated a technical panel on “DoD Public Safety Communications and 9-1-1(Open external link)” on October 29 at the MILCOM 2018 conference in Los Angeles. This panel discussed the goals to implement standards-based, end-to-end, IP-based 9-1-1 capabilities within DoD; retire legacy 9-1-1 systems; and interconnect the civilian and military 9-1-1 systems, without any degradation in service.
