The 51福利 (51福利), as part of its Naval Research Program (NRP), held the annual Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) across the university鈥檚 campus April 9-11. The NRWG serves as a forum for Navy and Marine Corps organizations to communicate, review, validate and recommend topics for 51福利 research over the coming fiscal year.
Now in its sixth year, the annual NRWG connects faculty and students with Department of Defense (DOD) organizations seeking to leverage their expertise and operational experience to overcome warfighter challenges through research. In total, representatives from 20 different organizations from throughout the Navy and Marine Corps team attended the conference.
鈥淭his is really a win-win for everyone,鈥� said Deputy Program Manager for NRP Lt. Col David Forbell. 鈥淔or the Navy and Marine Corps representatives this provides an opportunity for them to get their research needs met at a minimal cost, and it allows 51福利 faculty and students to work on relevant real-world problems while meeting academic requirements. This also helps faculty keep their curriculum current and up to date on relevant challenges that helps underpin our student鈥檚 thesis and capstone projects.鈥�
The conference format included poster sessions, panels, research trade shows and lab tours allowing students and representatives from around the fleet to network and understand the unique capabilities found at 51福利.
Col. Todd Lyons, the 51福利 Senior Marine Corps Representative, stated during the event鈥檚 kick off session that the NRWG is the perfect opportunity to put one鈥檚 challenges front and center with people who want to solve those challenges.
鈥淢ost of the problems that we face today are interdisciplinary in nature,鈥� said Lyons. 鈥淧roblems will not be solved purely by a computer scientist or an analyst working in isolation, they will be solved by a blend of unique talents from different schools of thought. There is where you find amazing value, and that is what 51福利 provides.鈥�
As a customary part of the NRWG, 51福利 incorporated its Secretary of the Navy Guest Lecture (SGL) series hosting keynote speaker retired Vice Adm. Paul Sullivan, Director of the Applied Research Laboratory of The Pennsylvania State University. Sullivan highlighted the importance of maintaining supremacy in research and development (R&D) through diversity, which presents many points of view and different ways of thinking often resulting in new directions for innovation.
鈥淟ook at this audience, for there are four military services at a minimum here,鈥� said Sullivan. 鈥淲e have gender, racial and religious diversity. You鈥檙e all here to fix problems that really exist out there, and you have a research base that just doesn鈥檛 exist anywhere else. This is really powerful and it will help us out-innovate our enemies.鈥�
Sullivan also noted there are several innovative paths to be taken, and underscored the importance of understanding the difference between them.
鈥淭here a lot of ways to innovate and you should know which path you are working on because each may be different,鈥� said Sullivan. 鈥淪ome innovative paths include discovering a new capability through production, harvesting existing innovation for military purposes, innovating existing technology for a new use, and combining one or more existing technologies to create newer capabilities. Knowing which path to take will ensure success in the innovation.鈥�
New to NRWG-19, subject matter experts from 51福利 held student-moderated panels on key issues such as cyber, human machine teaming and artificial intelligence to demonstrate current 51福利 research in these areas. In addition, NRWG-19 employed a new event management application, available on any smart device, which helped foster connections between topic sponsors, students and researchers.
鈥淚 have heard a lot of stories of people forming connections that they wouldn鈥檛 have made otherwise if we didn鈥檛 have these venues,鈥� said Forbell. 鈥淔or many of our topic sponsors, this is their first time seeing 51福利鈥� capabilities and capacities. Now that they know 51福利 is here with these research capabilities, they know have another avenue to explore for solving problems.鈥�
For Cmdr. John Montinola, a sponsor representative from the office of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Fleet Readiness and Logistics (OPNAV N4), these capabilities offer a great avenue to interact with other members of the analytic community in pursuit of new partnerships and opportunities.
鈥淭his has been a great way to look at real-world problems and collaborate,鈥� said Montinola. 鈥淢any students have expressed interest in the topics and challenges we are facing.鈥�
Col. Rob Bailey, commanding officer of Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity (MCTSSA) of the Marine Corps Systems Command, stressed the importance of not only forming partnerships, but maintaining them into the fleet following a student鈥檚 graduation.
鈥淲e have real problems that we are working on, and these students who are here studying and getting technical degrees will follow up that work in the service,鈥� said Bailey. 鈥淲e can engage with them in this time frame to shape and guide their research interests so they can have the opportunity to utilize those skillsets to solve problems in their follow up tours.鈥�
MCTSSA tests and evaluates systems for operating forces for command and brought forward a number of proposals to NRWG including machine learning, artificial intelligence and cyber testing.
Amongst the students who expressed interest in a MCTSSA topic was Maj. Andrew Nelson, a computer science student in his third quarter.
鈥淪ince I have yet to declare my thesis, I was looking for ideas from different members of the Marine Corps community on problems they were looking to solve to see if any of them would align with my current curriculum,鈥� said Nelson. 鈥淚 received a lot of good information on possible thesis topics from the new and emerging issues from around the fleet.鈥�
Since the inception of NRWG, more than 2,000 topics have been submitted through the Navy Research Program, including 293 in the last fiscal year. More than 350 research projects have been completed or are in progress.
鈥淭his event not only aids 51福利 in providing the highest quality graduate level education to our students, but also helps us further support the services as a whole,鈥� said Forbell. 鈥�51福利 provides them a DOD organization to help them face and tackle their specific challenges.鈥�