Lesley Weitz Department Chief Scientist, National Airspace System (NAS) Automation Evolution The MITRE Corporation

Dr. Lesley A. Weitz is a Senior Principal Aerospace Engineer and Department Chief Scientist in The MITRE Corporation’s Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD). Her current research focuses advanced avionics for NextGen concepts, air traffic operational concept development, trajectory modeling, and avionics and air traffic automation performance analysis. Dr. Weitz is also leading a project to study the use of an National Airspace System (NAS) network model to study how traffic management strategies impact NAS resilience. Dr. Weitz is the Chair of an avionics standards body developing advanced avionics applications, and she developed an inter-aircraft spacing algorithm (think automatic cruise control for airplanes) as part of that work.  

Dr. Weitz received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University at Buffalo and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University. She is the author of over 45 peer-reviewed conference and journal papers.  Additionally, she has been awarded a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office entitled, “Methods and Systems for Determining Required Interval Management Performance.” Dr. Weitz is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), a former Chair of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control Technical Committee, and is currently the Director of the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Group.