People Category: AIAA AVIATION Forum 2023

Jon Lovegren is the Head of Autonomy at Wisk Aero, where he oversees Wisk’s autonomy and airspace integration efforts. He ensures functions and technologies are best allocated across the system and operations, enabling the certification of a safe and scalable autonomous UAM system. He is also shaping Wisk’s roadmap from development to verification and certification of this autonomous capability. Jon has spent over a decade building various types of autonomous airborne systems for commercial and defense applications. Most recently, Jon led flight software and simulation development at Vahana, an Airbus-backed eVTOL autonomous air taxi demonstrator. Prior to that, Jon led development of GNC software for commercial UAS at Airware. He is passionate about aviation and is an airplane, helicopter, and paraglider pilot.

Kristin White is a transportation and mobility executive and strategic thought leader in the future of mobility. Currently she is the Chief Operating Officer of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America). As COO Kristin’s role is to promote policies that advance the development and safe deployment of emerging transportation technologies to advance safety, equity, access, mobility and sustainability. This work includes overseeing the strategic direction of future transportation policy, developing a cohesive national vision for AVs, empowering local communities, engaging thought leaders, and promoting equity and economic prosperity. In this work, Kristin champions MobilityXX – a public-private partnership to advance gender equity in transportation.

Kristin is a lawyer, policy strategist and innovator who brings empathy and leadership into the transportation sector, challenging us to harness revolutionary technologies and grow new partnerships to build tomorrow today.

Previously, Kristin was the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota’s Office of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV-X), one of the nation’s leading tech startups and idea incubators within government that researches and deploys transformational technology and policy. The CAV-X program’s innovations have garnered national attention, including winning the National Cronin Award, WTS Innovative Solutions Award, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce/AASHTO America’s Transportation Award.

Kristin has a B.A. from St. Olaf College, law degree from Hamline University School of Law and global arbitration certification from Queen Mary University of London. She began her career as a Fulbright Fellow with the US State Department and has since represented Fortune 500 companies, cities, and states to advance equitable and sustainable policy.

Dr. Patty Chang-Chien is vice president and general manager of Boeing Research & Technology (BR&T), overseeing the development of technologies that break barriers and increase the competitiveness and quality of Boeing products.

Chang-Chien was previously vice president of Mission Systems and Autonomy within BR&T, as well as the Electronic & Electrical Engineering functional chief engineer. In this prior BR&T appointment, Patty led a team of scientists, technologists, technicians and engineers specializing in advanced research and the development of enterprise-critical technologies such as mission systems, cyber security, advanced electronics, communications, networking, advanced computing, AI, data analytics, autonomy, and avionics.

As the Boeing enterprise functional chief engineer of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, she was responsible for talent development, design practices and knowledge curation, implementation of model-based engineering, technical/functional integration and continuous improvement of tools and processes across the engineering function.

Chang-Chien joined Boeing in 2019 from Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems where she last served as director of Electronics Products & Technology. She has more than 25 years of technical, program and functional management experience.

Official Bio

Bio coming soon.

Dr. Venke Sankaran, a member of the scientific and professional cadre of senior executives, is the Chief Scientist for the Aerospace Systems Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright–Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. He advises the director and guides the technical staff in the execution of the directorate’s $500M science and technology portfolio in turbine engines, high–speed systems, power & controls, air vehicles, rocket propulsion, and modeling & simulations. He also provides expert technical consultation to Air Force organizations, the Department of Defense, other government agencies, universities and industry. Previously, Dr. Sankaran served as the Senior Scientist for Rocket Propulsion, Aerospace Systems Directorate, where he was responsible for guiding the Air Force and Space Force near– and long–term research and development needs in the field of rocket propulsion. From January 2019 to December 2019, he also served as the Acting Chief Scientist of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research of the Air Force Research Laboratory. In this role, he was the principal science and technology adviser to the director in matters of formulation, planning, managing and integration of the Air Force’s $500M basic research investment.

Prior to joining the Air Force, Dr. Sankaran was at the Army’s Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center at Ames Research Center, where he served as the architect and technical lead of the Helios rotorcraft simulation software platform. He has also served as research faculty at Penn State University’s Propulsion Engineering Research Center, University of Tennessee Space Institute, Purdue University’s Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories, NASA Ames Research Center and University of California Santa Cruz’s University Affiliated Research Center. During his years in academia, Dr. Sankaran has taught undergraduate and graduate–level courses and mentored graduate students.

The author of more than 200 technical papers, Dr. Sankaran has been actively involved in several funded programs involving rocket propulsion, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics and plasmas. His research has been instrumental in the development of advanced algorithms for extending computational fluid dynamics methods to all flow regimes, including all Mach numbers, viscous–dominated regions, unsteady flows, generalized equations of state and multiphase flows. His research application interests have included solid, liquid and electric propulsion systems, rotorcraft aerodynamics and underwater vehicles.

Dr. Gregory Addington currently serves as the Senior Strategist of the Aerospace Vehicles Division, Aerospace Systems Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. As the Senior Strategist, Dr. Addington compiles and assesses the capability requirements of the future Air Force and determines the aerospace vehicle technology needs for enabling new capabilities. Dr. Addington then leads the long-term planning process of the division, guided by his 31 years of experience in flight sciences and air vehicle integration across all levels of technology maturity. Additionally, Dr. Addington leads the Fixed Wing Vehicle Sub Area of the Air Platforms Community of Interest, a forum which promotes cooperation and collaboration in the discovery, development, and integration of innovative and affordable technologies between the DoD services, NASA and industry.

Dr. Addington joined the Air Force Research Laboratory in 1991 as a Palace Knight Intern, completing his master’s degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder then returning to school in 1994 to complete his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame in 1998. In 2018 Dr. Addington left AFRL and joined the NASA Intelligent Flight Systems office at the Langley Research Center, then returned to AFRL in 2020 to serve as the Aerospace Vehicles Division Senior Planner and acting Chief Engineer until becoming the division’s Senior Strategist in 2022. Dr. Addington was named an Associate Fellow of the AIAA in 2003, and has served on the Ground Test Technical Committee and Membership Committee.

Laura Kushner is the Lead Systems Engineer and Vehicle IPT Lead for X-57 Maxwell, an experimental electric aircraft. She is also the Lead Systems Engineer on the Community Test Planning and Execution Subproject. Laura was previously a Systems Engineer on the Low Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD) Project where she focused on the Life Support and Crew Escape Subsystems integration and test requirements, environmental qualification of subsystem components, and airworthiness qualification of the aircraft. She has a background in development and implementation of flow visualization and optical techniques over a wide range of applications from lab to wind tunnel to flight test. Laura has made major contributions to the research, data analysis, planning, and execution of numerous projects including Orion, the Space Launch System (SLS), Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD), the Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project, and Commercial Supersonic Technology (CST) Project. Laura received her BS in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Washington.

Dr. Chris Gilmore’s background is in transportation sustainability, with a focus on quantifying and mitigating the environmental impacts of aircraft operations. He has worked on projects ranging from techno-economic analyses of alternative fuels to characterizing new propulsion technologies. At Universal Hydrogen (UH2), he is responsible for assessing future aviation and non-aviation uses of green hydrogen outside of UH2’s core products. This includes, for example, hydrogen combustion applications and other uses for fuel cell power systems. He has a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University.