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Hi, thank you for chatting with us.

Q: Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Yes, first, I’m thrilled to be part of NSI and CU Boulder. I recently retired from the U.S. Air Force after about 25 years and the transition to CU has been fantastic. Everyone here has gone above and beyond to make me feel welcome. While on active duty, I had the privilege of leading research programs, serving overseas, and spending over 10 years on the faculty at the Air Force Academy—it was an incredible experience.

My family and I have moved around quite a bit, but we’re excited to call Colorado our home. Outside of work, I love traveling (six continents down, Antarctica is still on my bucketlist!), running, hiking, reading, and spending time with my kids. Lately, we’ve been playing baseball and basketball outside when the weather is nice. When it’s not, we’ll watch movies, play video games, or throw darts (I’ve been getting pretty good at hitting the triple 20!).

Q: What excites you about your current role in NSI?
I’m especially excited to work with such a talented team tackling some of the most critical challenges in national security. NSI’s diversity of focus areas—from space domain awareness and hypersonics to Arctic security and remote sensing—was one of several things that drew me in. What has been even more rewarding is seeing the sense of service, commitment, and camaraderie here (both within NSI and across CU!) that I worried might be missing after leaving the military. It’s been wonderful to feel that shared mission again.

I'm also really excited about building the Human and Sociotechnical Systems Research (HSSR) program. The early concept is to bridge the social and cognitive sciences, humanities, computer and data sciences, aerospace engineering, and more to tackle three key areas: Responsible Human-AI Systems, Cognitive Security and Resilience, and Human Factors in the Space Domain. There is already a lot of terrific momentum at CU and it has been fun to come alongside faculty, staff, and students to extend their work. I think it is fantastic that NSI's model is collaborative with the explicit goal of working with faculty, staff, and students across campuses to address basic and applied research challenges. I've already established fantastic partnerships with the Institute of Cognitive Science, Computer Science, and Aerospace Engineering Sciences and look forward to new partnerships.

Q: Do you have anything else to add about NSI or your current goals/work?
Just that the HSSR program is new and those three areas may not fully define it. I have already learned of research at CU that aligns with the focus on understanding humans and larger social systems and applying this understanding to the design of future systems that support people. At the heart of it, I believe humans are the most critical element of national security and I look forward to leading and supporting research at CU that supports people—through studies grounded in science and technologies designed with human needs at the forefront. I hope faculty interested in this research will reach out to explore working together (I promise to be less elusive than that triple 20 on the dartboard!).