Sophia Bright is the U.S. Navy Product Support Vice President with the Government Services division within Boeing Global Services (BGS). She has been with The Boeing Company for more than 25 years on a variety of programs and functional areas.
Before joining the BGS Government Services team, Sophia was the Boeing Defense Space & Security (BDS) 777X Program Manager in BDS Bombers & Fighters. Prior to this role, she was part of the Productivity Leadership Development (PLD) program supporting the St. Louis site to improve process/product quality. Sophia’s breadth of experience has ranged from senior leadership positions within IT Business & Supply Chain Systems (BSCS) and Product Systems supporting several Enterprise and Engineering/Manufacturing systems, Guidance, Navigation & Control (GN&C) for the International Space Station Program to training simulator development for various Department of Defense aircraft platforms (e.g. P8-A, AH-64D, and the T-45) and the Commercial Crew Transport System. As part of these programs Sophia played an integral role by providing Program Execution, Systems Engineering oversight, and Systems Integration leadership across various disciplines and teams.
Sophia serves on the Greater St. Louis Boy Scouts of America STEM Council. In addition to Scouts, she is very active in the St. Louis Okinawan Society. Sophia is also on the St. Louis Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Executive Steering Committee and an Executive Sponsor for the St. Louis Boeing Asian Professional Association.
Sophia holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State University, a Master of Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis and a Japanese Studies Certificate from Waseda University in Tokyo. She is an Associate Fellow with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
Dr. Andreas Bernhard (Andy) joined Sikorsky a Lockheed Martin Company after receiving his PhD at the University of Maryland (UMD) in 2000. During his stay at UMD, Andy worked with Professor Chopra (his advisor) and others on active rotor research. Dr. Bernhard’s accomplishments at Sikorsky have included, wind-tunnel testing of a UH-60M rotor with Individual Blade Control, implementing a Health and Usage Monitoring system on the UH-60M helicopter which is now fielded on over 1000 aircraft, acting as chief engineer on the S-97 RAIDER® and CH-53K King Stallion programs. Andy is currently the director of Sikorsky’s Aircraft Design Engineering department. That department encompasses all technical aspects of design for the air vehicle. Andy is a Technical Fellow of the Vertical Flight Society and is the author of many technical papers and several patents.
Dimitris C. Lagoudas is the Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Engineering Research, Senior Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering, and a Distinguished University Professor at Texas A&M University. He is the holder of Robert C. “Bud” Hagner Chair of Engineering.
D.C. Lagoudas’ research involves the design, characterization and modeling of multifunctional materials at multiple scales, bridging the various length scales and functionalities, including mechanical, thermal and electromagnetic. He has co-authored more than 500 scientific publications in archival journals and conference proceedings and one of the widely used books on Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs). The SMA constitutive models that his research group developed have been implemented and integrated into finite element analysis software, used by many academic institutions and also by industry and government.
D.C. Lagoudas received the 2006 ASME Adaptive Structures and Material Systems Prize in recognition of his contributions to the modeling and characterization of SMAs and their use in aerospace structures and he is the 2011 recipient of the SPIE Smart Structure and Materials Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of AIAA, ASME, IOP and SES and was named a Distinguished University Professor at Texas A&M University in 2013.
Fassi Kafyeke has an Aerospace Engineering Master’s degree from Université de Liège (Belgium), a Master’s degree (Air Transport Engineering) from the Cranfield Institute of Technology (U.K.) and a Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering, Aerodynamics) from École Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada).
Fassi Kafyeke joined Bombardier in 1982 and has had a long professional career, including 25 years in aerodynamics. For 15 years he has been Chief of Advanced Aerodynamics, responsible for the aerodynamic design of Challenger 300 and Global 6000 business jets, CRJ 700, 900 and 1000 regional jets and the Cseries single-aisle aircraft CS100 and CS300, now Airbus A220. Since 2007, he became Director, then Senior Director, responsible for the development of the strategic technologies that can be found on Bombardier aircraft (fly-by-wire, composite wing, new generation aerodynamics, etc). In 2020, he became Fellow Research, Innovation and Collaborations for Bombardier Aviation. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and has been active on many consortium boards, such as CRIAQ, GARDN, SA2GE and AERO 21. He is currently on assignment at Aero Montréal to lead efforts to set up the ZIAQ, the Montreal Aerospace Innovation Zone.
Dr Kafyeke received in 2001 the Grand Prix d’Excellence de l’Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ) and in 2009 the Prix Innovation of École Polytechnique de Montreal. In 2003, he served as President of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI). He is a co-author of the book « Computational Fluid Dynamics for Engineers » and of several papers and lecture notes in Aerodynamics.
Axel Krein is the Executive Director of the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking, a Public-Private Partnership and the European Union’s leading Research and Innovation programme for steering aviation towards a sustainable and climate-neutral future. The aim is to develop and demonstrate disruptive new technologies and aircraft concepts aimed at reducing both CO2 and non-CO2 aircraft emissions.
Axel has been at the helm of Clean Aviation and its predecessor Clean Sky 2 since February 2019. Previously, he spent more than two decades with Airbus in various executive management positions, including Senior Vice President of Cyber Security Programme (2014-2019); Senior Vice President Research & Technology (2007 -2014); Senior Vice President Strategic Development (2004-2007); and
Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer (2000-2004). Axel holds a Masters in Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University of Aachen, Germany.
Official Bio
Joaquim R. R. A. Martins is a Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he heads the MDO Lab. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Before joining the University of Michigan faculty in 2009, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, where from 2002 he held a Tier II Canada Research Chair in MDO. Prof. Martins received his undergraduate degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College, London, with a British Aerospace Award. He obtained both his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University, where he was awarded the Ballhaus prize for best thesis in Aeronautics. He has served as Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal, Optimization and Engineering, and Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization. He is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Aircraft.
Sebastien DUBOIS is the Head of the Clean Sky 2 and the Clean Aviation programmes within the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking. He oversees the implementation of the research agenda of the Clean Aviation partnership as defined with its members and the European Union. He is in charge of the coordination of research activities implemented through grants and the delivery of technology results contributing to reduce the environmental footprint of the next generation of aircraft thanks to the high potential of exploitation of the solutions developed.
He started his career at Thales Group in 1997 and spent 13 years within this group, dealing with embedded electronic systems and avionics systems for both civil and military applications. He occupied positions of program manager on the Mirage 2000-5 or Airbus A350 XWB. After several years spent on commercial programs, he took the position of Head of Research and Innovation within Thales Avionics in charge of the preparation of the product policy strategy for the next civil Aircraft generation.
In 2010, he joined the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking as Project Officer in charge of the Helicopter domain and contributed to the successful achievements of rotorcraft activities in Clean Sky 1.
He was involved in the preparation and the launch of the Clean Sky 2 programme and was appointed in 2014 project officer of the Large Passenger Aircraft domain.
In May 2019, he was appointed Head of the Clean Sky 2 programme, in charge of the progamme coordination of the and the delivery of results by end 2024.
Sebastien DUBOIS holds a Master of Science in Electronics granted in 1996 from Ecole Centrale Marseille in France.
Connect with Sebastien on linkedin
After 26 years in the defense industry and 22 years in the U.S. Air Force, Glenn Kuller is applying his acquisition and program management experience as a partner at Kuller Consulting LLC in AZ. He currently supports a defense prime for program capture and the AIAA Aerospace Autonomy initiative; he hopes to again serve on the reestablished U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. Previously, Mr. Kuller was Vice President, Advanced Programs / Special Programs for Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control business area. Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, he held various positions at Hughes/Raytheon Missiles in Tucson, AZ. Mr. Kuller enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1972 and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1994, having written nuclear survivability requirements for GPS and a Statement of Need for the follow-on to the SR-71. His final assignment was leading the F-117A Stealth Fighter Development System Program Office.
