AESS Virtual Panel: How to Succeed in Your Engineering Career
This is a 90-minute moderated panel discussion on the practical aspects of managing a career as a practicing engineer in industry. We’ve assembled a diverse panel of speakers from our board of directors with well over 100 years of combined experience. The panelists will discuss their journeys entering, developing; and managing their engineering careers and address elements of engineering not taught in school like professional development, industry external and internal dynamics, balancing work-life, etc.
Instructors
Arik Brown
Dr. Arik Brown worked at Northrop Grumman Corporation Mission Systems from 2000-2020, Dr. Brown has been involved in radiator design, array pattern synthesis, system level analysis of antenna architectures and system architecture design. He has worked on various airborne and space platform programs. Dr. Brown taught several internal courses for the Antenna Department's Antenna Fundamentals Class and an Antenna System's Design class. He also taught an Introductory Electronically Steered Array class for potential and existing customers. While at Northrop, Dr. Brown achieved the level of Technical Fellow working in roles as Chief Engineer and Chief Architect for advanced sensor electronic payloads spanning Radar, SIGINT, Comms, and Electronic Warfare.
Dr. Brown joined RADA USA in 2020 as the Senior Principal Radar Systems Architect. At RADA USA, he is responsible for the strategic application and new development of RADA’s advanced multi-mission systems for tactical applications involving Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (CUAS), Counter Rockets, Artillery and Mortars (C-RAM), Short Range Air Defense and Active Protection Systems. His oversight supports critical capability for the Maneuver Force and Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Over the course of 20+ years, Dr. Brown has been a driver for innovation. He is the recipient of 6 Trade Secret awards, 4 New Technology awards, 23 disclosures and the author of 7 external publications. Additionally, he received the Northrop Grumman Award for Excellence and 3 Presidential Leadership Awards. For the Black Engineer of the Year Award conference (BEYA), Dr. Brown has been the recipient of the following awards: Modern Day Technology Leader (2008) and Professional Achievement in Industry (2019).
Dr. Brown’s expertise spans multiple domains including space, air, ground, and maritime. He has lead technology projects spanning Space SIGINT, Airborne/Ground Based Radar, EW systems, AESAs, mmW arrays, sensor fusion, AI/ML, and Information Operations. He is a world class expert in phased array technology and is the author of two books: Electronically Steered Arrays: MATLAB Modeling and Simulation (2012) and Active Electronically Scanned Arrays, Fundamentals and Applications (2021).
Dr. Brown received a Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering, and a Master of Science and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. His Ph.D. focus was Computational Electromagnetics.
Stefano Coraluppi
Stefano Coraluppi is a Chief Scientist at Systems & Technology Research (STR). He received the BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1990, and MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland in 1992 and 1997. He has held research staff positions at ALPHATECH Inc. (1997-2002), the NATO Undersea Research Centre (2002-2010), Compunetix Inc. (2010-2014), and STR (since 2014). His research interests include multi-target tracking, multi-sensor data fusion, distributed detection and estimation, and optimal and stochastic control. He is Editor-in-Chief for the ISIF Journal of Advances in Information Fusion. He serves on the IEEE AESS Board of Governors and the ISIF Board of Directors. He is a Fellow of IEEE.
Bob Rassa
Bob Rassa is the retired Director of Engineering Programs at Raytheon Technologies Intelligence and Space Systems, El Segundo CA and Fallston MD, since April 1996. Responsibilities were primarily helping improve systems engineering capabilities throughout Raytheon, and assisting the US Department of Defense and the Services (USAF, USA, USN, USMC) and Agencies improve their systems engineering capabilities via Industry Association and IEEE activity focused on systems engineering. Experienced in program management, systems engineering, radar systems design, logistics, test systems, and other electronics design. Prior to Raytheon, Mr. Rassa was employed as Group Vice-President at Mantech International Corp, where he was responsible for engineering and logistics programs at multiple locations, including Pasadena CA, Ft Huachuca AZ, San Antonio and San Angelo TX, and Vienna VA (1985-1996). Prior to that Mr. Rassa was Director, Programs, for Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s Electronic Systems Division (ESD), Hunt Valley MD, where in his last assignment he was responsible for all ESD programs in Baltimore MD, Lima Ohio and Puerto Rico, including nuclear instrumentation systems and electrical generation systems (1963-1984) Mr. Rassa is founder and Chairman Emeritus of the National Defense Industry Association (NDIA) Systems Engineering Division, as well as a founding member of their Automatic Test Committee. Mr. Rassa was the Industry Sponsor of CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration, the world-wide-adopted model for process improvement for SE, SW, PM, and HW design), and served as the Chair of the CMMI Steering Group, until Jan 2013 when this was disbanded with the move of CMMI from the Software Engineering institute to the new CMMI Institute. Mr. Rassa holds a BSEE from the University of California – Berkeley. He holds the US Patent for a satellite-based Advanced Maintenance System for Aircraft & Military Weapons, issued in August 1999, now being used on the F-22 and F-35. This patent is also the basis for General Motors’ Digital “On-Star” System. He is recipient of the Westinghouse Order of Merit, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, the McGinnis Professional Achievement Award from IEEE-AUTOTESTCON, the Lt Gen Thomas Ferguson Award for Systems Engineering Excellence from NDIA, the NDIA Gold Medal for Meritorious Service, the Raytheon Award for Excellence in Engineering Process Improvement, the IEEE Distinguished Service Award from the IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Society, IEEE Distinguished Service Award from the IEEE Systems Council, and was elected to the IEEE Technical Activities Board Hall of Honor.
Dr. Francesca Scire-Scappuzzo
Dr. Francesca Scire-Scappuzzo is a Consultant, Advisor, and Board Member, working with high-tech startups (Blockchain/Web3, Autonomy, AI/ML, RF, electronics, communications), large firms (Aerospace and Defense), and Government (FFRDcs, labs, and DoD) to accelerate speed of innovation, enable portfolio expansion, improve profitability, and gain competitive edge through business and technical modernization within new digital ecosystems. Dr. Scire-Scappuzzo was Sr. Director of Advanced Technology and Innovation at FAST Labs, the R&D branch of BAE Systems, delivering new external technologies via tech-transfer to its business units. She joined BAE Systems in 2017 as a Chief Scientist and Section Lead in the Autonomy Division. Francesca has extensive experience in the commercial and defense sectors, as President and CEO of Ondetech, developing antenna systems for communications and directed energy, and before this as Vice President of R&D and CTO for Metamagnetics Inc., developing electronic devices based on advanced magnetic materials. Francesca was PI and PM for numerous SBIR DoD programs that resulted in Phase IIE and Phase III contracts, publications, patents and tech transfer to programs of record. In addition to her industry experience, Francesca was Tenure Professor of EE at University of Catania in Italy. During her 20 years’ experience in high-tech Francesca established a strong professional network both internationally and nationally in academia, start-ups, and SBIR/STTR government communities. Leveraging her local network she initiated external technology sourcing activities with local accelerators and incubators such as Techstars, MassChallenge, FedTech, MassRobotics, MassVentures, and MIT The Engine. Francesca holds a Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich; a master’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and bachelors and master’s degrees Summa cum Laude in Electrical Engineering from University of Catania in Italy. Dr. Scire-Scappuzzo was post-graduate at European Space Agency (ESA/ESTEC) in the Netherlands. Dr. Scire-Scappuzzo has been serving as Chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Boston Section for GRSS (Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society) 2014-2021 and is now Chair of the IEEE AESS (Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society). In 2022 she served as advisor for the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Defense.
Publication Year: 2023