People Category: AIAA SciTech Forum 2023

Brian Everstine is the Pentagon Editor for Aviation Week, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining Aviation Week in August 2021, Brian covered the Pentagon for Air Force Magazine. Brian began covering defense aviation in 2011 as a reporter for Military Times. Over a decade as a defense journalist, he has reported from dozens of bases at home and abroad, including austere airstrips in Afghanistan, the cockpit of a B-52 over the South Pacific and the boom operator station of a KC-46. Before the military beat, Brian covered the Washington state legislature for the Associated Press.

Alberto Rolando holds a Master of Science in aeronautical engineering and a PhD in aerospace engineering from Politecnico di Milano. He later obtained an MBA from the Politecnico’s School of Management. Since 2007, he is also a professor in the university’s Department of Aerospace Science & Technology within the Flight Mechanics & Systems group. In the last 15 years, he was involved in several EU-funded research programs on the preliminary design and marketability of low-emission aircraft. In June 2022, he joined PACE Aerospace & IT in the Aircraft Preliminary Design and Performance line of business.

Dr. Paul is a subject matter expert in fluid mechanics and heat transfer with over 20 years of experience in the application of CAE across multiple industries including Energy, Chemical Process, Manufacturing, Electronics, Consumer Products and Life Sciences. He has extensive experience in CFD, FEA, failure analysis & remediation, design optimization and lab testing. With a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, he is also a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Ohio.

Jennifer Kibler serves as the Deputy Director for Intelligent Flight Systems within LaRC’s Research Directorate (RD).  She joined LaRC as a civil servant in 1999, shortly before receiving her Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech.  Within RD, Dr. Kibler has served as Associate Director for Intelligent Flight Systems and as a branch manager for the Crew Systems and Aviation Operations Branch.  Earlier in her career, she contributed to formulation activities in support of the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s Air Traffic Management – Exploration Project, and she led numerous research activities associated with Airspace Technology Demonstrations, Airborne Trajectory Management with Self-Separation, Flight Deck-based Merging and Spacing, Enhanced Oceanic Operations, and the Small Aircraft Transportation System.  Just prior to being selected as Deputy Director for Intelligent Flight Systems, Dr. Kibler completed a detail within LaRC’s Aeronautics Research Directorate where she led the Center’s “City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN) Smart Center” initiative.

Elizabeth (Beth) DiGiovanni is NASA Langley’s Senior Advisor for the Future of Work in the Office of the Center Director, a role she began in October 2021. In this role, she is leading the Center in changing its paradigm for where, when, and how its people work, which will expand its abilities to attract and retain top talent and strengthen its partnerships inside and outside NASA. Langley’s Future of Work efforts are reimagining working norms, prioritizing workforce flexibilities, and optimizing workplace investments to accelerate Langley becoming the Nation’s aerospace innovation hub. Beth is also NASA’s Founding Chair of NASA RAVE – NASA’s agency-wide employee resource group for Remote and Virtual Employees.

Previously, Beth served as NASA’s Director for Mission Support Strategy and Integration in the Mission Support Directorate (MSD), where she was the senior advisor to the MSD Associate Administrator responsible for developing and delivering agency-level strategy across MSD’s $3.5B portfolio. Prior to this role, in 2017, she was appointed to NASA as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for HR Transformation, where she led NASA’s first mission support transformation and established the first strategic planning and resource integration capability in MSD as the Director of Business Operations in the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer.

Beth began her federal career as a contractor for the United States Department of the Navy, where she provided consulting to the Executive Management Program Office supporting the lifecycle management of the Navy’s Senior Executive Service cadre. She progressed to supporting the Navy’s civilian HR Transition Management Office where she advised leadership on leading and managing through human capital crises, including responses to the 2013 federal government shutdown and the 2011 Fukushima natural disasters. She then became the Project Manager for the Navy’s HR Service Delivery Initiative responsible for executing the transformation of the Navy’s ninety-eight HR offices worldwide.

In 2014, she was recruited to the United States Department of Energy (DOE) as a civil servant leading DOE’s HR Service Delivery Program, which transformed the Agency’s HR line of business and established DOE’s first Shared Service Centers. She then became the Director for DOE’s Office of Human Capital Strategy, Analysis, and Project Management. Prior to her federal career, Beth was a management consultant specializing in private sector corporate strategy and HR management.

Through her career, Beth has become a leading expert in transforming business functions specializing in supporting STEM-based organizations in effectively and efficiently meeting their mission. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Business Administration. In her spare time, Beth enjoys dancing and painting, playing with her young daughter, and being in the great outdoors with her husband. She recently moved from DC to Cary, NC with her husband and daughter.