Speaker Bios

Nate Gahr is Senior Director, National Security Programs at the University of Arizona. In this role, he provides support for faculty in pursuit of external funding for fundamental research programs supporting National Security topics, issues, and challenges.  Prior to joining the university in 2022, Nate spent more than 25 years in various leadership roles in the US Army, the Department of Justice, and the US Intelligence Community.  Most recently, Nate established the FBI Phoenix Field Office’s Counterintelligence Joint Taskforce, leading efforts of a diverse team from numerous federal, state, and local agencies along with community partners, to protect National Security interests throughout Arizona.  Nate has led numerous National Security efforts with a focus on advance conventional weapons and WMD counterproliferation.

Austin Yamada was appointed President/CEO of the University of Arizona Applied Research Corporation (UA-ARC) in December 2018. Austin is responsible for leading the strategy development and operations of the UA-ARC and reports to a Board of Directors elected by University of Arizona President Robert Robbins. The mission of UA-ARC is to identify and coordinate significant defense and security research opportunities that align with UArizona research strengths and strategic plan; facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and public and private partnerships; and enable UArizona faculty and research teams to obtain new sources of funding. Prior to the formation of UA-ARC, Mr. Yamada served as the Director of the University of Arizona Defense and Security Research Institute (DSRI) from 2015-2018.  

Prior to coming to the University of Arizona in 2015, Mr. Yamada served with distinction as a career civilian in the Department of Defense for 25 years, culminating his career serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combatting Terrorism from 2000-2003. He received numerous awards for his government service, including achieving the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive in the Senior Executive Service. Mr. Yamada also held senior positions in the defense industry: Director of Business Development at Lockheed Martin Corporation (2003-2006); Vice President for National Security Systems at ManTech International Corporation (2006-2009); and Senior Vice President for Strategy and Business Acquisition at QinetiQ North America (2009-2011). Just prior to joining UArizona in 2015, Mr. Yamada was instrumental in the establishment of the Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation (2011-2015). 

Mr. Yamada earned a B.S. degree in Earth Science from Montana State University in 1975 and a Master of Engineering Degree in Remote Sensing and Analytical Photogrammetry from Virginia Tech in 1981. He is also a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute; the Department of State Senior Seminar; and was an Intelligence Community Fellow at the Wye Institute and a Senior Executive Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1991). 



Dr. Kimberly J. Jacoby Morris is the STEM Program Coordinator for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, in Arlington, VA. Dr. Jacoby is responsible for managing activities that improve scientific literacy among students, educators and the public to foster a highly skilled workforce. Her leadership ensures that education funding opportunities and community- based program initiatives promote the engagement of diverse stakeholders in understanding and contributing to technological advancements. Programs that contribute directly to this effort are the Virtual Classroom Exchange Program, Summer Faculty Fellowship Program and Frontiers of Engineering. Dr. Jacoby enjoys developing creative solutions to address challenges in education.

Prior to this position Dr. Jacoby was an Education Specialist in the Education and Community Involvement Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute which is a part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. As an Education Specialist she was responsible for managing STEM education and outreach programs, developing educational resources and coordinating digital assets. Her passion for education was inspired by her extensive teachingexperience during graduate school and her post-graduate guest lecturer opportunities at Bryn Mawr College.

Before transitioning full-time to the field of education outreach, Dr. Jacoby completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the late Dr. George Harold Patterson at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering which is a part of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Patterson was an award-winning scientist who made major contributions to the field of superresolution microscopy. While working with Dr. Patterson, Dr. Jacoby developed novel near-IR fluorescent probes and extended the photoswitchable FRET technique to democratize costly scientific experiments. Together they authored a book chapter and presented several

Ellen M. Robinson is a Senior General Engineer in the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Science and Engineering Division, Science and Engineering Collaboration Branch, Arlington, VA. Mrs. Robinson has served over eight years as a Program Manager for AFOSR STEM workforce development initiatives within the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) enterprise. She manages the AFRL Science and Technology Fellowship Program (STFP), the AFOSR Young Investigators Research Program (YIP), and the AFOSR Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE). Mrs. Robinson also serves as the AFRL Program Manager and the Department of Defense (DoD) Program Manager for the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) Program. She currently serves as the Contracting Officer Representative for two STEM fellowship program contracts. These programs are crucial in developing and bolstering the DoD STEM future pipeline for scientists and engineers (S&Es) inDoD relevant research areas and shaping future DoD research needs. These programs also support post- docs and senior researchers whose research aligns and supports the DoD and Department of the Air Force (DAF), including the United States Space Force, missions. In these roles, she develops STEM workflow development policies in innovative, high risk high reward research, plans and executes budgets totaling over $200M annually for early career scientists and engineers and STEM graduate scholars.

Since joining the Air Force as a civilian in November 1989, Mrs. Robinson has served in several roles in the Aeronautical Systems Center and the Air Force Research Laboratory including avionics design and laser optical communications design engineer, business and financial management, strategic development planning and programming. Prior to her current assignment, Mrs. Robinson was Deputy Program Manager in the STEM development office where she developed an AF wide K-12 AF STEM Outreach education program establishing policies and programs to interest K-12 students in STEM academic studies and careers of AF mission needs. She was instrumental in establishing the AF blueprint in the DoD STEM portfolio. She also co-authored with her DoD sister services STEM workforce development initiatives for near, mid, and far term.

She has used her depth of experience in strategic planning, budgeting, and execution in forecasting specific STEM needs vital for the future workforce as it relates to DoD and DAF missions.

Mr. Edward J. Lee is the Program Coordinator for Historically Black Colleges and Minority Institutions (HBCU/MI’s) for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in Arlington, VA, one of the 9 directorates that comprise the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). He is responsible for coordinating activities that provide funding support to minority institutions across the nation. Mr. Lee provides leadership, strategic direction, and oversight to universities to help make them aware of opportunities and facilitates introductions and guidance to ensure institutions of higher education are well represented within the minority community. He has a unique way of communicating and can talk to everyone to make them feel special, from students to university Presidents. Mr. Lee has taken on the task of coordinating activities with the small business programs of SBIR and STTR geared towards fostering the commercialization of products to the war-fighter for the Department of Defense

Mr. Lee has worked for the AFOSR since 1997, initially overseeing the University Research Initiative program. He is now working to enhance communications between HBCU’s and MI’s to be able to compete for contracts/grants at a larger scale. Working in private industry prior to coming to AFOSR and owning his own business since 1987, EJL Associates, Ed has helped to establish and support black-owned businesses in the Washington Metropolitan area. Ed is also a graduate from an HBCU, Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland and in 2013 authored his first book, The Soul of Man.

Katie A. H. Wisecarver is a Senior Research Psychologist in the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Science and Engineering Collaboration Branch, Arlington, VA. She has over 12 years of civilian service as a Program Manager in the Air Force Research Laboratory enterprise. Ms. Wisecarver works directly with a multi-agency, multi-service team to execute basic research and technology transition efforts on behalf of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of the Air Force (DAF). Ms. Wisecarver serves as the AFOSR Program Manager and the Department of Defense (DoD) Program Manager for the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), building capacity across the DAF (including US Space Force) in areas of importance to DoD strategic basic science and technology goals. She also manages the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) for AFOSR, bringing multidisciplinary research teams together to tackle the critical basic research needs facing the DAF and DoD through very-high risk, high-reward research projects. In these roles, she helps shape the future force and meet the technology needs of tomorrow’s Air Force and Space Force by growing the DoD research base, providing big-win research capacity, and stimulating the growth of emerging technologies via accelerated transition of findings to practical applications. She is also a certified Master Resiliency Trainer for the AF Comprehensive Airmen Fitness program and a nationally certified victim advocate with the AF Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Program.

Prior to her current position, Ms. Wisecarver served in several roles at AFOSR including: Program Manager for the Defense Enterprise Science Initiative (DESI) pilot program, bringing together industry and university teams for rapid innovation; Program Manager for the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Small Grants Program, supporting research for AFIT faculty and students; and Program Manager for the Awards to Stimulate and Support Undergraduate Research Experiences (ASSURE) program, a collaborative effort between DoD and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Ms. Wisecarver also served as an Assistant Program Manager for life sciences portfolios and a contracting officer’s representative. She is also experienced in STEM outreach, business management, and strategic planning.

Prior to entering public service, Ms. Wisecarver served as a Resource Analyst in the toxicology division at a clinical research organization in Virginia. Preceding that position, she worked in both in-patient and out-patient psychology in South Carolina.

Dr. Blasch is a program officer (PO) at the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in Arlington, VA supporting the Dynamic Data and Information Processing (DDIP) portfolio in Information and Networks. DDIP analytics and science pushes the ability to rapidly assimilate, intelligently collect, dynamically incorporate, and actively compute big data from high-end to real-time architectures. Methods are being developed for contextual awareness with high-fidelity modeling integrated with off-line modeling, on-line execution, and distributed network convex optimization for action, and multi-intelligence data flow architectures for human-machine systems. The DDIP portfolio has strong connections with the AFRL technical directorates, NSF, and DOE; while principal investigators have leveraged developments for DARPA, IARPA, Army, Navy, NGA, DHS, TTCP, NATO, NASA, FAA, NITRD, NIST, and other strategic science projects.

Dr. Blasch became a PO at AFOSR in May 2017; having a long-time affiliation with AFOSR: (1996-2000 funded military researcher, 2000-2012 reservist, 2013-2016 Principal Investigator). Dr. Blasch has a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 7 master’s degrees, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Wright State University (WSU). Prior to active duty, he compiled 33 robotics team awards in UAVs, multi-agent UGVs, and solar cars contests. He has spent 25yrs at AFRL starting as an Active Duty Officer in Wright Labs followed up with assignments in the sensors directorate, exchange scientist to Defence R&D Canada (DRDC), information directorate, and AFOSR. During that time, he has compiled 900+ papers, 31 patents, 50+ tutorials, and 8 books focusing on information fusion (H=68, citations <22,000). He is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of data fusion, target tracking, human factors, space domain awareness, and aerospace applications. His project support includes many AFRL, DARPA, and tri-service activities for multi-intelligence fusion systems. Dr. Blasch was previously an Adjunct Electrical Engineering Professor at WSU and the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio teaching signal processing, target tracking, and information fusion (2000-2010). Additionally, he served 33 years as a USAF reservist supporting space situational awareness, cyber technology, and nanotechnology. Combining his research, civilian, and reservist activities, he is best known for deploying data analytics tools to the AF Open Architecture Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS). He is a member of NATO, TTCP, CoI, NITRD, and numerous academic working groups. He is recognized with numerous AFRL awards, invited plenary talks, and military medals; elected President of the International Society on Information Fusion; and awarded Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of SPIE, and Associate Fellow of AIAA

Dr. Sarah Popkin joined the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) as a Program Officer in September 2020. She manages the High-Speed Aerodynamics program, which funds basic research pursuing an understanding of the fundamental physics driving high-speed aerodynamic vehicle design with a focus on hypersonic flight. This portfolio currently funds basic research in several areas germane to hypersonic flight including boundary layer physics, fluid-structure interactions, high-temperature gas dynamics and the development of new diagnostic techniques. As basic research discovers improved understanding and predictive methodologies, collaborations with AFRL and other applied research organizations within the DoD enable the transition of basic research to engineers designing future hypersonic systems. As a highly multi-disciplinary challenge area, Dr. Popkin maintains engagement with the domestic and international scientific community engaged in a wide range of disciplines relevant to hypersonics.

Prior to AFOSR, Dr. Popkin contributed to Department of Defense projects as a Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory employee for 13 years. In 2017, she was appointed as the Chief Scientist of the Advanced Weapon Systems Group. She was responsible for coordinating science and technology proposals and awarded projects in the area of offensive weapons in general but, more specifically, hypersonic weapons. Dr. Popkin mentored and served as a technical advocate for approximately 60 staff members across many disciplines including aerodynamic, structural, thermal, propulsion and systems engineering. As a contributing member of the Hypersonic Focus Area Collaboration Team, she developed and maintained a hypersonic science and technology development roadmap to drive current and future JHU/APL research investments. In parallel with her Chief Scientist role, Dr. Popkin was also a Principal Investigator of an internally JHU/APL-funded grant focused on enabling low-cost, rapidly reusable hypersonic testing based on hybrid rocket motor technology.

Stemming from her early career at JHU/APL, Dr. Popkin also has 10 years of experience developing aerodynamic and trajectory models for several DoD organizations including primarily DARPA, USAF and ONR. She has experience generating simulations for a range of vehicles including subsonic Unmanned Air Vehicles, supersonic threat missiles and conceptual hypersonic vehicles and even hydrodynamic submarine modeling. In support of her dissertation, Dr. Popkin was funded by AFOSR to research the SparkJet, an active flow control device based on the conversion of electrical energy into thermal energy to augment supersonic flows. Research involved benchtop and wind tunnel testing as well as analytical model development.

Related to active flow control, Dr. Popkin earned her MS studying two unique active flow control devices: synthetic jet and the dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator. Her thesis focus was on subsonic flow control applications over bluff bodies to reduce base flow separation and the corresponding drag and/or oscillations due to vortex shedding. Research results were based primarily on wind tunnel testing.

Principal Mathematician, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Arlington VA. Program Officer, Information Assurance and Cybersecurity program. Responsibilities: (1) Chart new research directions and to support Basic Research in cybersecurity for the Air Force; (2) Serve on the AFOSR Directorate Technology Advisory Council; (3) Serve on OSTP/NITRD team developing the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan; (4) Engage with external organizations to advance national S&T initiatives; (5) Briefed Senate Armed Services Committee’s Professional Staff Members on AFOSR’s math and computing programs; (6) Served as Team Lead and Internal Research Council member.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Nguyen was a Program Officer of Office Naval Research (ONR), Arlington, VA. Responsibilities: (1) Managed/Comanaged Basic and Applied Research programs in information science, computational mathematics, and computer vision; (2) Collaborated with Office Secretary of Defense to draft STTR/SBIR BAAs and to manage these efforts. (3) Represented ONR at professional society meetings.

Prior to his position at ONR, Dr Nguyen was a researcher at National Security Agency. Responsibilities: (1) Conducted internal research in areas of applied mathematics and computer science. Research topics included communication, cybersecurity, information processing, artificial intelligence; quantum computing; (2) Designed algorithms and implemented their prototypes for deployment in SIGINT collection systems; (3) Supported computer scientists and electrical engineers on issues related to mathematics.

Dr. Boyan Tabakov is the Program Officer for the Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMP) portfolio at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in Arlington, VA. His primary objective is to nurture basic AMP research efforts supporting technological advances in areas relevant to the Air Force and Space Force Missions, including precision navigation, timekeeping, remote sensing, metrology, and novel materials.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Tabakov served in different roles at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Information Directorate (RI) in Rome, NY. His main objectives there were to establish AFRL/RI trapped ion capabilities and to grow them towards the exploration of photon-mediated quantum networks with trapped ion nodes for Air Force needs.

Before entering civil service, Dr. Tabakov received a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Physics from The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, while doing graduate research work at Sandia National Laboratories. There, he developed and explored novel microfabricated surface ion trap devices and tackled associated scientific and engineering challenges. His graduate school work was precluded by appointments at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at the University of California at Berkeley, where he helped setting up an ion trapping lab. Before this employment, Dr. Tabakov received a double-major B.A. in Physics and in Applied Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, after attending City College of San Francisco and Skyline College.

Dr. Grace Metcalfe is the Program Officer for the Quantum Information Science portfolio at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in Arlington, VA. She manages a multidisciplinary basic research program aimed at understanding how to control and exploit quantum phenomena for the analysis, collection, processing, storage, disseminations and protection of information. The program emphasizes key fundamental issues that underpin multiple quantum science and technology areas relevant to the Air Force and Space Force.

Prior to joining AFOSR, Dr. Metcalfe was a Program Manager at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in Adelphi, MD, where she established the ARL Center for Distributed Quantum Information, and piloted the OSD Applied Research for the Advancement of S&T Priorities (ARAP) Quantum Sciences and Engineering Program between the tri-Service Laboratories (ARL, AFRL, and NRL). She also concurrently served in several roles for the strategic planning and management for the Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate at ARL.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Metcalfe conducted multifaceted research in areas such as atomic physics, precision measurements, microcavity resonators, ultrafast spectroscopy, semiconductor physics, optoelectronic device science, terahertz radiation, and metamaterials. Dr. Metcalfe earned her B.A. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley and her Ph.D. in Physics from Yale University. She holds 3 patents and has authored more than 75 research publications, including 2 book chapters and 2 journal cover articles, and over 100 conference presentations and seminars.

Dr. John W. Luginsland is a Principle Physical Scientist at AFRL/Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Arlington, VA USA. He serves as the Program Officer for High Energy Radiation-Matter Systems.

In previous terms of government service, he worked as an Acting Division Chief, Division Technical Advisor, and Acting Branch Chief as well as the program officer for plasma physics (2009-2014) and lasers and optics (2014-2017) at AFOSR. From 2013 to 2014, Dr. Luginsland was the program element monitor and action officer for Air Force basic research in the Office in the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisitions (SAF/AQR). He was a staff member at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate in the late 1990s, having first joined AFRL as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher.

Dr. Luginsland has industrial experience at Confluent Sciences, LLC, NumerEx, LLC, and Science Applications International Corporation as well as academic experience as a professor at Michigan State University in the Departments of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering. Additionally, he is the elected Vice-Chair of the IEEE’s Plasma Science and Applications Committee, a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s Intelligence Science and Technology Experts Group (ISTEG), and served as co-chair on a National Academy consensus study “Powering the Army of the Future.”

Dr. Luginsland is a fellow of the IEEE and the Air Force Research Laboratory, and received the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Science Society’s Early Achievement Award.

He has degrees from the University of Michigan in Nuclear Engineering.