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Biographies of Committee Members and Staff
L.David Montague, an independent consultant, is retired president of the Missile Systems Division at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space and a former officer of Lockheed Corporation. A member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), he has more than 40 years of experience in the design, development, and program management of military weapons and their related systems. His expertise includes complex systems engineering and systems integration of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as exo- and endoatomospheric interceptors engaging these classes of threats. In addition, he is knowledgeable about threat assessment; overhead surveillance systems; cueing technology; battle and engagement management methodology; interceptor design, guidance and control, countermeasures, and discrimination; and the use of directed-energy weapons for defensive purposes. Mr. Montague is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a previous recipient of the AIAA's Missile Systems Award. He has served on numerous scientific boards and advisory committees, including the Navy Strategic Systems Steering Task Group and task forces for both the U.S. Army and the Defense Science Board.
Alan Berman is a part-time employee at the Applied Research Laboratory of Pennsylvania State University (ARL/PSU) and at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). At ARL/PSU, Dr. Berman provides general management support and program appraisal and supports Joint Counter-Mine Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration; at CNA, Dr. Berman assists with analyses of Navy research and development investment programs, space operation capabilities, information operations, and C4ISR programs. Dr. Berman's background is in defense science and technology, in particular advanced weapon and combat systems. His previous positions include director of research at the Naval Research Laboratory, where he administered broad programs in basic and applied research, including electronic warfare, radar, communications, space systems, space sciences, material sciences, plasma physics, antisubmarine warfare, underwater acoustics, oceanography, electronic devices, and space-based time standards for global positioning systems. Dr. Berman has served on numerous scientific boards and advisory committees, including as co-chair of the NRC's 1999 Review of ONR's Air and Surface Weapons Technology Program.
Victor C.D.Dawson is an independent consultant at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), where
he previously served as an analyst. A mechanical engineer by training, his background is in naval gun systems and launchers. At CNA, Dr. Dawson directed numerous studies on naval guns and surface ship torpedo defense, as well as conventional strike warfare and future aircraft carrier studies. He was a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, where his research interests included structural dynamics and vibration. He also served on the NRC's 1999 Review of ONR's Air and Surface Weapons Technology Program.
Earl H.Dowell is the J.A.Jones Professor and Dean Emeritus of the Edmund T.Pratt, Jr., School of Engineering at Duke University. A member of the NAE, Dr. Dowell's research interests include aerodynamics, air-breathing propulsion, computational mechanics, energy and power technologies, and structural dynamics. His current research interests include the dynamics of nonlinear fluid and structural systems and their associated limit cycle and chaotic motions. Dr. Dowell has served on numerous scientific boards and advisory committees, and he is a current member of NRC's Air Force Science and Technology Board.
Milton Finger is retired deputy director, Department of Defense Programs Office, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.S.degree in 1957 and has spent his entire career at LLNL, starting as a staff chemist in the Chemistry and Materials Science Division. Mr. Finger 's research interests include lethality and survivability of conventional weapons systems, ordnance engineering, propellant chemistry, weapons effects, munitions target interactions, chemistry of explosives, detonation physics, explosives safety and initiation, and computer simulation and prediction of high-explosives performance. He has served on numerous scientific boards and advisory committees, including task forces for the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and the Defense Science Board.
Alfred B.Gschwendtner was leader of the Opto-Radar Systems Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL) for many years, where his research interests included coherent laser radar, smart weapons, automatic target recognition, neural networks, infrared search and tracking systems, multisensor fusion, and modeling and simulation. During his tenure at MIT/LL, Mr. Gschwendtner worked on the development and testing of many different weapons systems for the Department of Defense, including air and surface weapon systems for the U.S. Navy. He also served as a member of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) Technology Area Review and Assessment (TARA) for Weapons for the last four reviews. He is currently a senior staff member in the MIT/LL Aerospace Division and is a member of the NRC Air Force Science and Technology Board.
Dimitris C.Lagoudas is Ford Professor of Aerospace Engineering and associate vice president for research at Texas A&M University. His research interests range from theories of defects in solids to the mechanics of composites and fracture mechanics. His current research interests include active materials and smart structures, as well as multifunctional materials and composites. Dr. Lagoudas has served on numerous scientific boards and advisory committees, and he is a recent member of the Institute for Defense Analyses' Defense Science Study Group.
John (Ted) Parker, retired Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy, is an independent consultant whose background is in military operations relating to ship, air, and missile defense systems. On active duty, Admiral Parker commanded several ships and later a group of over 30 ships. Additionally, he commanded the Operational and Test and Evaluation Force that tested new weapon system designs for the Navy. Prior to retiring in 1989, Admiral Parker served as director of the Defense Nuclear Agency (now the Defense Threat Reduction Agency). He has served on numerous scientific boards and advisory committees, including the NRC Committee for Assessment of Naval Forces' Capability for Theater Missile Defense.
Robert F.Stengel is professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of the Laboratory for Control and Automation at Princeton University. His current research focuses on failure-tolerant and robust control, intelligent systems, and coordinated flight of uninhabited air vehicles. At Princeton, Dr. Stengel was director of the Flight Research Laboratory, where he conducted pioneering experimental research on digital flight control systems, flight computer networking via fiber optics, aircraft flying qualities, and aerodynamic system identification. Before Princeton, Dr. Stengel worked at the Analytic Sciences Corporation, the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, the Air Force, and NASA. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He received the AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award in 2000.
Verena S.Vomastic is currently a lead engineer with the MITRE Corporation in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A mathematician by training, Dr. Vomastic has specialized in innovative approaches to leveraging all-source intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information for time-critical warfighting tasks and in developing and testing advanced operational concepts for integrated missile defense. Prior to joining MITRE, Dr. Vomastic held leading research and engineering positions at the Aerospace Corporation, the Institute for Defense Analyses, Electrospace Systems, Inc., and the Center for Naval Analyses. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor of mathematics at McNeese State University and a mathematics lecturer with the University of Maryland's European Division. Dr. Vomastic has served as a member of the Naval Studies Board and participated in numerous studies addressing capabilities and technologies for future naval forces.
Stephen D.Weiner is a senior staff member in the Systems and Analysis Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory. Dr. Weiner 's background is in ballistic missile defense, including system and radar design, sensor tracking and discrimination measurements, and interceptor guidance. His current research interests include defense against both theater and strategic cruise missiles. Dr. Weiner has served on a number of government and scientific advisory boards, including the NRC Committee for Assessment of Naval Forces' Capability for Theater Missile Defense.
Staff
Charles F.Draper is a senior program officer at the National Research Council's (NRC) Naval Studies Board. Prior to joining the NRC in 1997, Dr. Draper was the lead mechanical engineer at S.T. Research Corporation, where he provided technical and program management support for satellite earth station and small satellite design. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 1995; his doctoral research was conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where he used an atomic force microscope to measure the nanomechanical properties of thin-film materials. In parallel with his graduate student duties, Dr. Draper was a mechanical engineer with Geo-Centers, Incorporated, working onsite at NRL on the development of an underwater x-ray backscattering tomography system used for the nondestructive evaluation of U.S. Navy sonar domes on surface ships.
Ronald D.Taylor has been the director of the Naval Studies Board of the National Research Council since 1995. He joined the National Research Council in 1990 as a program officer with the Board on Physics and Astronomy and in 1994 became associate director of the Naval Studies Board. During his tenure at the National Research Council, Dr. Taylor has overseen the initiation and production of more than 40 studies focused on the application of science and technology to problems of national interest. Many of these studies address national security and national defense issues. From 1984 to 1990 Dr. Taylor was a research staff scientist with Berkeley Research Associates, working
onsite at the Naval Research Laboratory on projects related to the development and application of charged particle beams. Prior to 1984 Dr. Taylor held both teaching and research positions in several academic institutions, including assistant professor of physics at Villanova University, research associate in chemistry at the University of Toronto, and instructor of physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Dr. Taylor holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in physics from the College of William and Mary and a B.A. in physics from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to science policy, Dr. Taylor's scientific and technical expertise is in the areas of atomic and molecular collision theory, chemical dynamics, and atomic processes in plasmas. He has authored or coauthored nearly 30 professional scientific papers or technical reports and given more than two dozen contributed or invited papers at scientific meetings. In 2002 Dr. Taylor received the National Academies' Individual Distinguished Service Award and Group Distinguished Service Award for his role as study director of the report Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism.
