People Category: AIAA SciTech Forum 2020

Allie Braun

Allie Braun currently works for Earthrise Alliance, a philanthropic initiative established to fully utilize Earth science data to combat climate change, as the Communications and Administrative Assistant. Additionally, she works as the Coordinator of the Brooke Owens Fellowship. Prior to this, she served as a David E. Shi Center for Sustainability Fellow from 2014 to 2018. She has been a Communications Intern with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, and NASA. Braun has been a writer and editor for Unwritten.com for four years and has been published in the Huffington Post several times. She is an alumnus of the Washington Media Institute and holds a B.S in Sustainability Science from Furman University.

 

Narendra Joshi

Dr. Narendra Joshi is Chief Scientist at GE Research. He has experience of both technology and product development at GE Aviation. He led the development of Dry Low NOx Combustion technologies for the GE Aeroderivative engines. He also took the lead in developing the LMS100, the world’s first intercooled aeroderivative engine. He is a member of ASME and an associate fellow of the AIAA. Dr Joshi received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from SUNY StonyBrook and BTech from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Eric Kaduce

Eric Kaduce is the director of the Boeing-Aerion joint venture for Boeing NeXt, a business division building the ecosystem that will define the future of urban, regional and global mobility. He leads the creation and execution of the program plan to design, build, certify, and deliver the Aerion AS2 supersonic business jet.

Since joining Boeing over two decades ago, Kaduce has held various leadership positions in Commercial Airplanes. He was the chief engineer for Twin Aisle Product Development where he oversaw all product improvement and new derivative development for the 747, 767, 777, and 787 families. Prior to that role, he was the New Airplane Affordability leader in charge of managing the engineering, production system, and supply chain configurations to meet recurring and total investment targets for new airplane development programs.

Kaduce also spent time on the 777X program as the Interiors Customer Integration leader and was involved with the New and Derivative Product Development groups. His experience includes engineering work for development programs such as the 747-8 Intercontinental and 747-8 Freighter, the 767-400ER, 747-400ER, and 747 Special Freighter. This work included replacement studies for the 737, 757 & 777 platforms.

In 1995, Kaduce started his Boeing career as a structures engineer after graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering & mechanics from the University of Minnesota. He has served on the University Alumni Advisory Board and remains active with the university’s aerospace department.

Mary Lynne Dittmar

Dr. Mary Lynne Dittmar is President and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, an industry trade group supporting human exploration, science, commerce, and American leadership in space. Under her leadership the Coalition has grown from 5 companies to more than 70 over the past four years and is a recognized source for policy, technical and business information in the aerospace and defense sector.

Earlier in her career Dr. Dittmar managed the mission operations group for
The Boeing Company on the International Space Station Program. Later,
she acted as a special advisor to the NASA Astronaut Office before her
appointment as Boeing Chief Scientist for Commercial Utilization of the
ISS. More recently she was Senior Policy Advisor to International Space
Station National Laboratory. She has also served as a senior advisor to
NASA, the DoD, and the FAA.

Mary Lynne is a Fellow of the National Research Society and an Associate
Fellow of the American Institute for Astronautics and Aeronautics. From 2012-2014 she served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Human Spaceflight, and is beginning her third term as a member of the Executive Committee of the Space Studies Board of the National Academies. She is also a member of the Users’ Advisory Group of the National Space Council and of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee for the FAA. Dr. Dittmar resides in Washington, D.C.

Woodrow Whitlow, Jr.

Dr. Woodrow Whitlow, Jr. is Technical Director for National Aerospace Solutions, LLC (NAS). In this role, he provides overall leadership and guidance on technical matters and advises NAS senior management. He serves as the primary NAS interface to the Arnold Engineering Development Complex Technical Director and advises the NAS Mission Execution Director on technology programs and projects. Dr. Whitlow is the primary interface with university- and industry-sponsored research programs and the University Consortium and Technical Advisory Board. He coordinates subject matter input, research programs, and efforts to build the technical workforce. Dr. Whitlow is the NAS interface for all Cooperative Research and Development Agreements and represents the company at national and international technical forums.

Before joining the NAS team, Dr. Whitlow was Executive in Residence in the Cleveland State University Washkewicz College of Engineering (2013 – 2016). He collaborated with the Dean of Engineering to implement strategies to strengthen the college, increase the enrollment of students in the engineering disciplines and to raise their retention rates. He developed approaches to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who earn engineering degrees. Dr. Whitlow coordinated a successful proposal to establish an Additive Manufacturing and Training Center in the College of Engineering and served as advisor for student engineering projects. He served as Co-chair of the Dean’s Diversity Council and developed a plan to eliminate implicit bias in the faculty hiring process.

Before accepting the appointment at CSU, he was the Associate Administrator for the Mission Support Directorate at NASA Headquarters (2010 – 2013). The directorate had a budget of $3.8 billion and enabled program and institutional capabilities to conduct NASA’s aeronautics and space activities. As the directorate’s associate administrator, Whitlow was responsible for most NASA management operations, including human capital management, headquarters operations, agency operations, the NASA Shared Services Center, strategic infrastructure, cross-agency support, and construction and environmental compliance and restoration.

Prior to being appointed to the Associate Administrator position, he was director of the Glenn Research Center. There, he was responsible for managing an annual budget of approximately $750 million, and overseeing a workforce of approximately 1,680 civil service employees that is supported by approximately 1,580 contractors. The center has 24 major facilities and over 500 specialized research facilities located at the 350-acre Cleveland site and the 6,400-acre Plum Brook Station site in Sandusky, Ohio. At Glenn, Whitlow led research and development efforts in the areas of aeropropulsion, in-space propulsion, aerospace power and energy conversion, communications technology, and human research.

From September 2003 through December 2005, Whitlow served as the Deputy Director of the NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center. There his duties included assisting the director in determining and implementing center policy and in managing and implementing the center’s missions and agency program responsibilities in the areas of processing, launch, and recovery of launch vehicles; processing of spacecraft; and acquisition of launch services. Prior to this appointment as Deputy Director, he served as the Director of Research and Technology at the Glenn Research Center.

Whitlow began his professional career in 1979 as a researcher at the NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va. He assumed various positions of increasing responsibility before moving to the Glenn Research Center in 1998. In 1994, he served as Director of the Critical Technologies Division, Office of Aeronautics, at NASA Headquarters.

Whitlow earned his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and doctor of philosophy degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds an honorary doctor of engineering degree from Cranfield University. He has written more than 40 technical papers, most in the areas of unsteady transonic flow, aeroelasticity and propulsion.

Whitlow has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive, Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive, U.S. Black Engineer of the Year in Government, NASA Exceptional Service Honor Medal, NASA Equal Opportunity Honor Medal, the (British) Institution of Mechanical Engineers William Sweet Smith Prize, Minorities in Research Science Scientist-of-theYear Award, and National Society of Black Engineers Distinguished Engineer of the Year Award. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics elected him as a Fellow in 2010.

Tom Shih

Tom I-P. Shih is the J. William Uhrig and Anastasia Vournas Head and Professor of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University.  Before coming to Purdue, he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University.  He has also served as a faculty member at Michigan State University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Florida and was a mechanical engineer at NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center.  Shih started his undergraduate education at West Virginia University, but completed his BS degree at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. His MS and PhD degrees are from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  His research interests are in computational fluid mechanics, gas turbine aerodynamics and heat transfer, aircraft icing, and control of shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions.  He is a fellow of AIAA and ASME and a recipient of AIAA’s Energy Systems Award. Currently, he serves on the NASA Advisory Council – Aeronautics Committee and a number of other advisory boards and chairs AIAA Committee on Higher Education.