David Babcock, president of the Air and Space Forces Association, Wright Memorial Chapter 212 presented the 2023 AFA Wright Memorial Chapter awards to five Air Force Institute of Technology faculty members on May 30. The awards recognize faculty who advance aerospace power and technology through innovative efforts in education and research.  The AFA has sponsored the awards since 1982.

Dr. Scott Nykl received the General Bernard A. Schriever Award.  This award is given in recognition of a person who advances aerospace power, technology, doctrine, or the Air Force as a profession.  The award is named in honor of Gen. Schriever, an AFIT alum from 1941, who organized and formed the Air Force’s ballistic missile and military space program.

Nykl is an associate professor of computer science within AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. During the award period, he developed and tested a first-of-its kind optical system which enables aerial refueling between two fully autonomous aircraft in GPS denied environments.  He also designed an automated cargo loading system which is one and a half times faster than the previous, error prone, manual system.  Additionally, he created a cyber training and recruitment virtual reality program which won first place at the Air Education and Training Command’s Innovation Challenge.

Maj. Dane Jansson received the Colonel Charles A. Stone Award.  This award is given in recognition of an individual who has made outstanding contributions to furthering the AFIT mission through new and innovative efforts involving demonstrated personal leadership.  The award is named in honor of Col. Stone, the dean of AFIT’s School of Systems and Logistics from 1962-1966, who was instrumental in the school receiving accreditation to award master of science degrees.

Jansson is the Cyber 220 and 300 course director within AFIT’s School of Strategic Force Studies. During the award period, he led the first Joint Advanced Cyberspace Operations course revision in seven years, driving an exclusive 21-member Air Force team of experts to design a next generation field grade officer cyberspace course, securing critical support from Headquarters Air Force. He led the first in-residence international cyber course since 2019, educating 12 students from eight countries, bolstering North Atlantic Treaty Organization cyber defense capabilities. Additionally, he was selected to lead AFIT’s 2023-2028 Strategic Plan implementation, propelling impactful changes to drive the Institute’s mission while providing important updates to leadership.

Capt. Jonathan Sicurella received the Professional Continuing Educator Award.  This award is presented to the individual who made the most significant contribution to AFIT as evidenced through excellence in teaching in order to maintain the excellence of AFIT’s professional continuing education academic programs.

Sicurella is an instructor of planning and architecture within AFIT’s Civil Engineering School.  In his first year, Sicurella exceled in leadership as he led 16 instructors to completely overhaul the 80-hour beddown planning capstone project for the Air Force Civil Engineer Basic Course, shifting the scenario focus from the Global War on Terrorism to Great Power Competition challenges in the Pacific theater.  This redesign leveraged student work to aid operations planning development and augment Pacific Air Force headquarters’ engineering planning capacity. He also successfully led a team of 16 Air Force subject-matter experts to completely revamp the installation planning curricula, creating 75 hours of new lesson content to align with military and civilian career field competencies. Sicurella presented the results at the Air Force Civil Engineer Requirements Development Workshop along with a lesson on regulating plans, aired to several hundred civil engineers world-wide.

Lt. Col. Hiren Patel received the Professor Ezra Kotcher Award.  This award is given in recognition of an individual who made significant contributions to curriculum or instructional development within AFIT.  The award is named in honor of Col. Kotcher, the first director of AFIT and an aeronautical engineer who worked on inflight fueling and directed the development of the X-1 and X-2 jet planes.  

Patel is the systems engineering course director within AFIT’s School of Systems and Logistics.  During the award period, he conceived and delivered innovative education for modern “big data” analytics using neural networks and artificial intelligence, reaching 523 students world-wide in 12 formal learning events. He skillfully tailored instruction for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Tanker Division and the Army’s AI and Digital Engineering Directorate. He also collaborated with AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management to simultaneously deliver content for his courses and the Data Science Graduate Certificate and Master’s degree programs. Through his innovative instruction, acquisition and operations professionals are better prepared to harness the emerging AI revolution in support of national security and strategy objectives.

Dr. Adam Reiman received the Gage H. Crocker Outstanding Professor Award.  This award is presented to the individual who made the most significant contribution to the AFIT mission through excellence in teaching, research, and service in order to maintain the excellence of AFIT’s degree-granting academic programs.  The award is named in honor of Col. Crocker who served as the dean of AFIT’s School of Systems and Logistics from 1971 – 1972 and was a coauthor of papers on turbulence associated with blunt body flow.

Reiman is an assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management within AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. His dedication and contributions have significantly enhanced AFIT’s academic environment and furthered the professional development of faculty and students. A leader in funded research, Reiman secured $1.05M in research funding and serves as the principal investigator for $563K in research projects, including innovative initiatives such as stereoscopic vision for automated cargo processing and enhanced text summarization for operational reports through natural language processing enhancements. In addition, Reiman incorporated three of the Air Force’s six data fabric programs into his classroom instruction, bolstering the research skills of 41 students. He also used this knowledge to enrich the skills of his colleagues by presenting these topics at both AFIT’s Faculty Learning Committee and the Learning Committee Showcase, cultivating improved data analytics throughout the Institute. He played a pivotal role in fostering collaboration for research and student experiential learning. As AFIT’s sole manager of the Air Force Intermediate Development Education program, Reiman organized visits to Air Mobility Command headquarters and two state-of-the-art distribution center facilities to gain valuable insights into emerging supply chain management practices.