View as a webpage  /  Share

Naval Warfare Studies Institute
Newsletter  -  31 January 2023

About    Research     Events     News    Contact   

In this issue, we introduce Naval Postgraduate School’s new Office of Research and Innovation—the latest campus transformation that better aligns NPS research capabilities with the needs of the naval and joint forces and strengthens our connections with industry partners.

We also offer a peek behind the scenes at some of the people driving research, innovation, and impact across the NPS campus:

• The latest faculty recipients of the Menneken Award explain how their award-winning research makes a difference in the larger warfighting community.
• This quarter’s student members of the NWSI team share their educational and operational journeys.
• Students in last quarter’s course on “Maneuver Warfare for the Mind” connect their experience to the CNO’s Get Real, Get Better initiative in an article published by the Center for International and Maritime Security.

As this issue reminds us, people and relationships are the driving force behind innovation and impact. NWSI is a proud connector and enabler of changes that deliver new mission-focused capabilities.

New Office of Research and Innovation Expands NPS Impact Across the Naval Innovation Ecosystem

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) has launched the new Office of Research and Innovation (OR&I) to help accelerate warfighting solutions from concepts to capabilities. Why it matters:  Maintaining our intellectual and technological edge is fundamental to U.S. naval advantage at sea and in the littorals. NPS is the fusion of defense graduate education, research, and innovation, and the new OR&I cements NPS’ role as a leader and central connector for the naval innovation ecosystem.

How it works: OR&I replaces and expands upon the work of the NPS Office of Research and is being led by Dr. Kevin Smith, NPS’ Vice Provost for Research.

• “The NPS Office of Research traditionally had a single primary function which was to process research proposals and ensure that there were support agreements in place between NPS and other organizations that allowed the transfer of funds,” explained Smith.
• NPS research has expanded over the past decade to include support to larger endeavors that span departments, academic institutions, and involve fleet and industry partners.
• Smith and the OR&I team are developing the staffing and infrastructure to encourage, fund, and manage these larger interdisciplinary teams as they conquer relevant problems and focus on military innovation.
• New efforts will include connecting individuals to proposals, finding funding sources, and providing project managers to support the management of larger projects at an institutional level.

The NWSI impact: NWSI is working hand-in-hand with OR&I to strengthen NPS connections with Naval partners and to provide support for the research and innovation already taking place at NPS. Col. Randy Pugh, Director of NWSI, is constantly on the lookout for opportunities where students and faculty can connect directly with the fleet because he knows that these engagements generate excitement, innovation, and impact.

• “Whether we’re looking at wargames, the integration of artificial intelligence, or better ways of doing maintenance, innovation is ultimately about human intellect and creativity energized through a shared vision, collaboration, integration, and rapid experimentation,” said Pugh.
• “We have incredible talent here in our warrior-scholars and faculty; We just need to connect them to the challenges of the fleet and Fleet Marine Forces and the Sailors and Marines out ‘doing the job,’ and they will far exceed our highest expectations. The Office of Research and Innovation is critical to achieving this vision at scale.”

What’s next: OR&I will be supporting many interdisciplinary projects, both new and ongoing. Future newsletters will bring updates on progress in areas including artificial intelligence, autonomy, additive manufacturing, and industry partnerships.

Read the full story to learn more about how OR&I strengthens relationships throughout the Naval Research and Development Establishment and realizes the latest NPS strategic framework.

Menneken Award Winners Reflect on the Impact of Leading Mission-focused Research

Every year NPS awards two faculty members the Carl E. and Jessie W. Menneken Faculty Award for Excellence in Scientific Research. We sat down with this year’s winners as they reflected on their work that led to this achievement and their hopes moving forward.

Dr. Paul Lester, a specialist on leadership in the Department of Defense Management, received the Menneken Award for Highly Meritorious Research for 2022. Behind the genius: Before joining NPS in 2019, Lester began his career as a U.S. Army infantry officer, where he set his sights on becoming a professor at West Point. After serving as an infantry commander, West Point hired him and then sent him to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln to get his PhD, where he began his study of leadership.

• “When I arrived at West Point, I fell in love with leadership research in the military,” said Lester. “I also married a fellow leadership researcher.” He has published several works with his wife, Gretchen, who is tenured faculty at San Jose State.
• His new passions in both work and life reshaped Lester’s goals. He left the infantry and went on to become a research psychologist for the Army, serving at the Pentagon and later as the Founding Director of the Research Facilitation Laboratory, a DoD data science laboratory in Monterey.

A study of everything: While most researchers focus in-depth on a single topic, Lester has become well-versed in a variety of areas to meet the broad needs of the Army.

• “My expertise had to grow away from leadership and incorporate things like resilience, courage, and general psychological health. It also had to include negative outcomes common in military life, like anxiety, depression, PTSD, and substance abuse.”

Applying happiness research to military performance: Lester is particularly proud of a 2022 article, Happy Soldiers are Highest Performers, in part because of his pioneering co-authors.

• He worked closely with Dr. Martin ‘Marty’ Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association and founder of positive psychology, and Dr. Ed Diener, aka “Dr. Happiness,” who is largely responsible for creating the research stream on happiness. Diener passed away just before the article was published, but he got to work with the team right up to the end.

Why it matters: Recognizing Lester’s work with the prestigious Menneken Award reflects the increasing importance of research on the human element of warfare and leadership.

• “NPS is primarily focused on the STEM fields, but there is an important place at NPS for behavioral science leadership type research,” said Lester. “Our school has made tremendous technological advances for the Department of Navy, Department of Defense and the end user. But behind all of that is a person. Understanding how people operate, how they need to be led, how they are motivated and the ethical decisions that they must make and ethical dilemmas that they face—that research matters a lot, so we have to make space for it at NPS.”
  
  

Dr. Timour Radko, a fluid dynamics specialist in the Department of Oceanography, received the Menneken Award for Significant and Sustained Contribution for 2022. What he does: Radko has worked at NPS since 2004 and is still enamored with his broad range of fluid dynamics-related projects and even more so with the team of students and faculty that work with him.

• Radko refuses to pick his favorite research topics from the year saying, “Everything is interesting. This is like asking which of your kids you like more.” Despite that, he has worked on numerous projects that exemplify his love for the subject area.
• One focus in his lab is to think outside of the box and discover methods of nontraditional detection. “Imagine you want to detect something in the ocean at a depth of 300 meters,” Radko explained. “You can’t see it, so you have to come up with some interesting solutions to detect it. Our team is looking at hydrodynamic detection. The idea is that if you missed the moving object itself, maybe you can still figure out that it was there just by looking at the trail of turbulence, like contrails in the sky from an airplane. When something travels through the water, for several hours in some cases, there’s a stream of turbulence behind.”

The Naval connection: Radko attributes a part of his passion and interest in his work to the relevance and necessity that comes from working to solve real-life Naval priorities.

• He recognizes the incredible potential at NPS that resides in the students and the interface between Navy applications and academics.
• “In a civilian university, I probably would be doing extremely boring work, proving convergence theorems and such. Here at NPS things are different. I see what our mission is, and why I am doing my part. I’m still doing a lot of theory. But I understand the end game. We need to have a forecast for our Navy Ships. That’s why I’m doing this theory. We need to catch enemy submarines. That’s why I’m studying waves or that’s why I’m studying turbulence—so I see where it starts and ends.”

The intersection of research and teaching: Radko’s success as a researcher informs his approach to the classroom, which is in turn bolstered by a collaborative community of coworkers and students.

• In addition to the Menneken Award, Radko received The Rear Admiral John Jay Schieffelin Award for Excellence in Teaching, and he is equally proud of both. He notes that the ability to be a good teacher and communicator is directly related to his success and joy in the research that he does.
• “Our department is excellent. I have friendly colleagues who are all willing to help, and the students are smart and pleasant and able to see the big picture. Assistant Research Professor Justin Brown was particularly a great help. The students love him, and he’s so selfless.”

Meet the Newest Members of the NWSI Staff

The core team at NWSI is often supported by active-duty military in the interim between assignments. This quarter, NWSI is joined by the three new staff featured below. These officers embody the fusion of NPS’ research, education, and innovation. By joining the NWSI team, they are immediately applying the knowledge and skills they acquired as students and “paying it forward” to the next generation of warrior-scholars.

LT Stewart with her father at her graduation from NPS

LT Marissa Stewart is a surface warfare officer working closely with Surface Warfare Chair CAPT Jeremy Gray this quarter. LT Stewart was a graduate of the Naval Academy class of 2016 and went on to complete two tours on amphibious ships while working in the engineering department. She graduated from NPS this past December with an MBA in financial management and will be continuing her education at Naval Station Newport for Department Head School.

• “I am excited to enjoy beautiful Monterey a little while longer while also being valued added, working with CAPT Gray in NWSI. NWSI is very rich in research and educational opportunities, and I hope I can contribute to their success while being a bridge between the fleet and NPS’s academic efforts.”

LT Matthew Duncan began his military career in 2012 as an enlisted Geospatial Analyst in the Air Force. After completing his bachelor’s degree in Intelligence Studies, he commissioned from OCS in 2016 as a Surface Warfare Officer. He served two back-to-back forward deployed tours in Japan and Spain before graduating NPS from the National Security Affairs Department with a Master in East Asian Security Studies. Duncan is currently awaiting the results of the Navy’s Lateral Transfer and Redesignation board where he hopes to be reunited with the Intelligence community.

• “NPS has had a huge impact on my life and has been hands down the best education I have received,” said Duncan. He is excited to be part of the NWSI team and support the strategic mission at NPS to link industry and operational problems to relevant student research.

LT Duncan at NPS with his children

LCDR Wall poses for a photo at MARCOM

LCDR Mellini Wall commissioned through the Navy Officer Candidate School in 2013 and was designated a naval flight officer in 2014. LCDR Wall accrued over 1000 hours in support of USSTRATCOM’s mission of nuclear deterrence in addition to earning her Combat Systems Officer, Mission Commander, and Instructor designations. From 2018-2021 she served as the Maritime Air Current Operations and Strike Section Head at NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) in Northwood, England. She graduated from NPS in December with a Master in Middle East Regional Security Studies and will be reporting to the Defense Language Institute in April to study Arabic.

•  “The learning experience I have had at NPS, as well as the people I have met here, have formed an experience that I know will be invaluable to me during my future assignments in defense cooperation. I am looking forward to adding more to that experience and helping NPS contribute even more to the fleet here with NWSI!”

NPS in the News

NPS Strategic Framework

This month NPS released a Strategic Framework that builds upon transformation efforts and provides us with a shared vision for the future which combines our graduate education, research and innovation to generate cognitive readiness and intellectual leadership for the future force. This Strategic Framework centers on four interconnected Strategic Priorities.  Read more. 

Artificial Intelligence Summit at NPS Accelerates Critical Capabilities
Rosemary Mena-Worth, Naval Postgraduate School

The fourth quarterly Naval Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit took place December 5-9 at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). More than 160 participants from the eight Navy AI Task Forces, Warfare and Warfighting Development Centers, the fleet, Fleet Marine Force and DOD engaged in-person and virtually at the summit co-hosted by the U.S. Navy Chief AI Officer (NCAIO) Brett Vaughan and NPS’ Naval Warfare Studies Institute. Read more.

Learning To Get Real And Get Better: A Conversation With Learning Leaders Assembled and edited by Professor Mie Augier and Maj Gen (Ret.) William F. Mullen, USMC  |  Center for International Maritime Security

The CNO’s recent initiative of “Get Real, Get Better” (GRGB) touches on the importance of learning on several levels. Learning is difficult and often painful as it involves transformation and change, and is not just something that one can put on “like a new suit,” as Mortimer Adler wrote in his classic piece, “Invitation to the Pain of Learning.” The emphasis in GRGB on taking hard honest looks at our performance and to have the courage to take the steps to improve have resonated well with the recent iteration of our Naval Postgraduate School course, “Maneuver Warfare for the Mind: The Art and Science of Interdisciplinary Learning for Innovation and Warfighting Leaders.” We sat down with a handful of students/learning leaders to listen to their reflections on the topic and how learning about learning itself can help us get real and get better as warfighters and warfighting organizations.  Read more.

News of Note

Training and Education 2030
U.S. Marine Corps

Whiteboard visualization from Kayla Haas. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaylaolsen_yesterday-the-us-marine-corps-published-activity-7024024738788245504-f_5P

Last week the U.S. Marine Corps released the latest doctrine: Training and Education 2030.

On professional military education:  "As we prepare for the future fight, we need Marines who possess the intellectual ability to out-think their adversaries. We hone this ability through deep and active engagement with the brightest minds and the most challenging material, which forces Marines to contend with their assumptions, perceptions, and concepts. PME must be dynamic, relevant, portable, and fit within the time constraints of a Marine’s career. It must also reward intellectual curiosity and calculated risk-taking to maximize intellectual growth. To maintain our intellectual edge, we will increase the rigor and relevance of our PME, reinforce the culture of life-long learning, and modernize enlisted PME. Furthermore, we will deepen PME incentives and expand wargaming."  Read more. 

Upcoming Events

Joint Interagency Field Experimentation 23-2
6-10 February 2023
NPS Field Laboratory at Camp Roberts

Focus Area: Human Performance Monitoring & Situational Awareness, including the following concentration areas:

• Human Systems Integration
• Cyber Situational Awareness
• Situational Awareness for Emergency Management
• Manned / Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T)
• Decision-Support Systems and Tools
• Non-Radio Frequency Tagging, Tracking and Locating (TTL)
• Enhanced Color Night Vision

Learn more about JIFX 23-2.

WEST 2023
14-16 February 2023
San Diego, CA

NPS will be onsite at booth 1651 and participating in the following panel:

• Directed Energy Weapons and Hypersonics  Exhibit Hall E, Aisle 1000/900 14 February, 2:50pm - 3:50pm
• Hear from  Joe Blau, Research Associate Professor of Physics, and LCDR Brian Curran, USN, PhD Candidate, Applied Physics
  
  

Spring Naval AI Summit
13-16 March 2023  |  0800-1700 PST
Naval Postgraduate School campus

The Naval AI Summit facilitates crosscommunication, information-sharing, and promulgates lessons-learned from across government, academia, and industry. The Spring AI Summit features solution-oriented workshops to address the Naval AI Task Forces' key findings around data, infrastructure, and competency that currently limit the DoD from scaling AI. Registration open for in-person or virtual attendance with government email only.