People Category: Panelist

Jimmy Smith was hired by the FAA in 2010 and was an air traffic controller assigned to Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control for 10 years. Prior to joining the FAA, he served as an air traffic controller in the U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense.

Jimmy has been the full-time National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) representative for Unmanned Aircraft Systems since August 2020. He participates in all aspects of UAS integration, from the development of future technologies and requirements to working with individual facilities on their specific UAS operations. He also works with the FAA‘s UAS office on the development and implantation of UAS training for air traffic controllers.

Jia Xu is CTO for unmanned aerial systems and urban air mobility at Honeywell Aerospace. In his role Xu leads strategic technology and product development and engineering execution. Xu previously led strategic planning and business development for the same business. Before joining Honeywell, Xu worked as chief architect for UAM systems at Airbus, where he built operational architectures and data-driven business cases for UAM vehicles and networks. He also held leadership positions at the RAND Corporation, where he drove its advanced technology portfolio in AI/ML, UAS, and autonomy. On the air vehicle side, Xu worked on UAS design at General Atomics and taught aerodynamics as an adjunct lecturer at Stanford. Xu received his Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford. He also holds Master of Science degrees in aeronautics from Imperial College London and in international relations from the London School of Economics

Jen Uchida graduated from the University of Colorado in 2005 with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in aerospace engineering. Following graduation, she accepted a position with the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) as a civilian flight test engineer for the Marine Corps in Patuxent River, MD.

There she supported the experimental flight testing of the V-22 Osprey, deploying several new and lifesaving capabilities to the fleet and logging over 100 flight hours of special crew time. In 2011 she had the opportunity to attend the US Naval Test Pilot School, a rare and prestigious opportunity for a civilian. There she learned how to relate real-world mission requirements to her work as a flight test engineer and logged 100 flight hours of crew time over 16 different types of military aircraft. In 2012, Jen applied to NASA’s astronaut program and was one of the top 50 candidates for selection in 2013.

Following her time with NAVAIR, she spent a winter in Big Sky, MT as a ski instructor before heading to Gulfstream Aerospace to help lead the experimental test efforts for FAA type certification on the new G500 and G600 programs. Jen is now the Test Engineering Manager at AeroTEC (Aerospace Test, Engineering, & Certification) where she oversees and directs the work of Flight Test Engineers, Flight Test Instrumentation Engineers, and Test Pilots on various customer projects.

Khin Paing currently serves as a Vice President of Program Management at SkyGrid, a Boeing and SparkCognition Joint Venture company. SkyGrid enables the operation of Remotely Piloted Aircraft by providing third party services necessary to maintain the safety of given flight. Prior to this role, Khin managed the MQ-9B SkyGuardian and Protector RPAS programs at General Atomics Aeronautical Inc. MQ-9B is the first military type certified RPAS to civilian standards and operates in non-restricted airspace. Khin also had extensive engineering experience in entire life cycle development and certification of avionics suites (PL 21/PL Fusion) at Rockwell Collins and clean sheet business jets (G500/G600) at Gulfstream. Khin earned her B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois and M.Eng in Systems Engineering from Iowa State University.