Philomena Zimmerman Deputy Director, Engineering Tools and Environments, OUSD(R&E)/Advanced Capabilities United States Department of Defense

Ms. Philomena (Phil) Zimmerman is the Director for Engineering Tools and Environments within the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of the Deputy Director for Engineering.  Ms. Zimmerman leads the Engineering Tools and Environments area, including Digital Engineering and Connect the Engineering Community infrastructure.  She supports elements of R&E related to policy, practice, and workforce development, as well as the R&E use of digital practices.  

In digital engineering, Ms. Zimmerman leads the effort to advance the use of model-based techniques for engineering practice in all engineering and related activities.  Following on from the Digital Engineering Strategy, this includes understanding the implementation needs of users in the areas of tools, tool chains, frameworks and architectures.  Ms. Zimmerman is responsible for identifying and closing gaps in policy, practice, and workforce development related to digital engineering as a part of the larger engineering community’s use of computational and model-based techniques.  Ms. Zimmerman likewise leads an effort to consolidate and solidify the engineering uses of infrastructure to support digital engineering, and other computational based activities.  This includes identifying users and user needs; identifying what already exists in practice to support the needs, and practically unifying the solutions to evolve the solution set.

As part of her efforts in Engineering, Tools and Environments, Ms. Zimmerman is revising the working group concept toward a permanent Community of Practice in Digital Engineering through establishment of a core Body of Knowledge at the center of the community of practice; and functioning Tiger Teams who are responsible to the community for success in solving acknowledged gaps or pain points.  All information discovered or created finds a home in the Body of Knowledge.  Her team supports updates to policy, guidance, training material, and participates in program assessment activities conducted on behalf of OUSD(R&E).  Ms. Zimmerman’s activities include collaboration with professional societies and associations, such as National Defense Industrial Association, International Council on Systems Engineering, and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

During her career Ms. Zimmerman has also served in leadership positions within the Army’s Future Combat System program, Program Executive Office Integration, and Defense Modeling and Simulation Office, and with NAVAIR.  She has held positions in modeling and simulation, test, and product development communities, including activities in radar processing, signal analysis, and traditional modeling and simulation development and use.  She is active in standards usage identification and usage.  She has worked in both private industry and in government. She has received numerous awards in her Federal career.  She has a bachelor of science in mathematics from St. John Fisher College, with an emphasis in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology.  She is DAWIA Level 3 certified in Engineering and Test and Evaluation.