People Category: Webinars

Gillian Bussey

Dr. Gillian Bussey is currently the Deputy Chief Science Office, US Space Force,advising the Space Force on S&T issues since November 2024. Previously, she provided analytic support on China competition to the Deputy Secretary of Defense at OSD CAPE and was a Special Assistant to the USAF Chief Scientist from 2022 to 2024 where she advised the Chief Scientist on technical matters relevant to the USAF, particularly nuclear S&T; nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3); hypersonics; air platforms and propulsion; testing and evaluation; and quantum mechanics.

From 2020 to mid-2022, she was the inaugural director of the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office(JHTO) in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, Research, and Engineering, Advanced Capabilities. As director, she was responsible for DoD’s integrated S&T strategy for hypersonics, working with foreign allies, setting up and overseeing the University Consortium of Applied Hypersonics (UCAH), and providing oversightof DoD hypersonics programs. She also set up a JHTO Systems Engineering Field Activity (SEFA) at NSWC Crane. She set up the office in April 2020 according to Congressional direction and oversaw budgets up to $100m and office of 14 people.

She was a special advisor to the Assistant Director, Hypersonics office as a detailee from the CIAadvising the department on hypersonics weapons, technologies, and applicable missile defenses from June 2018 to April 2020. As the acting director for Aerospace Technologies from July 2019 to February 2020, she was also responsible for overseeing DoD activities in air platforms and related propulsion technologies.

She spent six months on assignment at the Defence Science Technology Group (DSTG)’s AppliedHypersonics Branch near Brisbane, Australia in 2015 and 2016 supporting the joint US Air Force-DSTG HIFIRE program and DSTG’s hypersonics programs.

She was CIA’s hypersonics systems and technologies analyst in the Weapons Counterproliferation Mission Center from 2011 to July 2018. She analyzed technical information associated with hypersonicsystems and air-launched weapons from May 2007 to September 2012.

She has degrees in physics and political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2005)and a M.S. and Ph.D in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park (2009, 2012). While at the University of Maryland, her research focused on hypersonics. In 2022, the UMD Clark School of Engineering named her as an inaugural member of its Early Career Distinguished Alumni Society. She is an AIAA associate fellow.

John Blevins

Dr. John Blevins is the Chief Engineer for NASA’s Space Launch System Program, managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He helps direct the SLS Engineering efforts and oversees the SLS Chief Engineers Office.

Prior to this assignment, Dr. Blevins served as the SLS Deputy Chief Engineer. He previously served as Technical Assistant in the Structural Design and Analysis Division in the Spacecraft & Vehicle Systems Department, where he was the Aerodynamics sub-discipline lead for SLS, the lead for the SLS Buffet and Vibroacoustics Resolution Task Teams, and the SLS Alternate Discipline Lead Engineer for Structures and Environments.

His other work since coming to Marshall in 1999 include propulsion researcher and principal investigator as well as a combustion devices engineer before becoming a team lead in Aerodynamics. On a detail assignment, he served as Aerosciences Branch Chief in 2016.

Before his work at NASA, Dr. Blevins gained industry experience at Honda of America Manufacturing, and Sverdrup Technology Group (now Jacobs Engineering). He is both an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a licensed Professional Engineer. He is also an experienced pilot with airline transport pilot and flight instructor ratings.

Dr. Blevins earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University, and attained both a Master of Science Degree and a Doctorate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Back to Aerospace Perspectives Series Webinar

Danielle Wood

Professor Danielle Wood serves as an Assistant Professor in Media Arts & Sciences and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Within the MIT Media Lab, Prof. Wood leads the Space Enabled Research Group which seeks to advance justice in Earth’s complex systems using designs enabled by space. Prof. Wood is a scholar of societal development with a background that includes satellite design, earth science applications, systems engineering, and technology policy. In her research, Prof. Wood applies these skills to design innovative systems that harness space technology to address development challenges around the world. Prior to serving as faculty at MIT, Professor Wood held positions at NASA Headquarters, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Aerospace Corporation, Johns Hopkins University, and the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs. Prof. Wood studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned a PhD in engineering systems, SM in aeronautics and astronautics, SM in technology policy, and SB in aerospace engineering.

Starr Ginn

Ms. Starr Ginn is the Advanced Air Mobility Lead Strategist which is responsible for maintaining a “strategic view” of the larger AAM ecosystem wide movement to include advances in industry aircraft, airspace and infrastructure investment and capability; the developing and proposed regulatory framework for implementing change to support AAM missions; the role and participation of standards bodies involvement supporting AAM operations; and the movement and direction of NASA projects participating in the AAM Mission.  In this role she leads the development of an implementable strategy for project direction and focus to enable the fulfillment of NASA’s Initial Automation Prototype while also advising and maximizing benefit to industry partners, regulatory bodies, and standards groups.

For the last three years, Ms. Starr Ginn led the planning, development, and execution of the Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign (AAM NC) series, which consists of flight testing an experimental AAM Eco System of novel eVTOL and cargo vehicles, infrastructure, and airspace management technologies in the context of increasingly complex safety scenarios enabled by automation.

Starr has 27 years of experience conducting one-of-a-kind flight tests.  Starr has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and Master of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering.

Kevin Bowcutt

 

Kevin G. Bowcutt is Senior Technical Fellow & Chief Scientist of Hypersonics for Boeing with 40 years of experience. He is an AIAA Fellow, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In 2021 he was selected by Texas A&M to be a Fellow of the Hagler Institute of Advanced Studies. He holds BS, MS and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. Bowcutt is an internationally recognized expert in hypersonic aerodynamics, propulsion integration, and vehicle design and optimization. Notable accomplishments include developing the viscous-optimized hypersonic waverider, flight testing scramjets by launching them from a light gas gun, technically supporting the NASA X-43A scramjet flight test program, originating and optimizing the design of the X-51A scramjet-powered demo vehicle, helping the Space Shuttle Columbia accident investigation by simulating wing aero-thermal-structural failure, leading Boeing’s contributions to the HIFiRE international hypersonic flight experiment program, and leading Boeing’s hypersonic passenger airplane design investigation. In the spring semester of 2007 Dr. Bowcutt was a visiting professor at Princeton University’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department where he taught a course in hypersonic airplane design and taught the same course at Texas A&M University in the spring of 2022. Dr. Bowcutt leads Boeing’s advanced design and technology development efforts for hypersonic missiles, airplanes and space-planes.