Dr. Walter Jones, Air Force Institute of Technology director and chancellor presented the 2021 Air and Space Forces Association Wright Memorial Chapter awards to five AFIT faculty members on May 19. The awards sponsored by the Wright Memorial Chapter 212 of the Air and Space Forces Association recognize faculty who advance aerospace power and technology through innovative efforts in education and research. The AFA has sponsored the awards since 1982.

Dr. Steven Fiorino 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.

Fiorino is a professor of atmospheric physics and director of the Center for Directed Energy within AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. He expertly led a team of over 10 scientists, engineers, and research interns, whose effort contributed to the overall goal of advancing directed energy science and technologies. Fiorino was heavily involved in the Directed Energy Professional Society over the last 10 years, while he chaired numerous technical sessions for the society’s annual and systems symposia and served as the technical editor of the Journal for Directed Energy.

Fiorino is widely recognized throughout the DoD, academia, industry and internationally, and was recently designated as a subject matter expert for NATO SCI-264 and SCI-316 Atmospheric Effects on Laser Propagation, the Effects of High Energy Lasers Project Arrangement Atmospheric Effects on Laser Propagation, and AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate Scientific Advisory Board.
 

Capt. Sven Ellefson 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.

Ellefson is an instructor in AFIT’s Civil Engineer School teaching courses on project management, readiness, and emergency management. In his first year at AFIT, Ellefson superbly directed four courses, taught 85 lessons, and achieved over 1,500 student contact hours resulting in educating 900 total force engineers across 118 installations. He blazed a new path for the Civil Engineer School by developing new educational content for the enlisted force, an expanding demographic in the School's mission.

Ellefson leveraged his deployed and overseas construction management experiences to redesign the 10-hour introduction to project management course. These updates enabled the course to meet the newly mandated upgrade training requirements for over 25,000 enlisted engineers and provided all civil engineer professionals working on construction projects a foundational understanding of project management. His efforts contributed to a 25% increase in enlisted force students at the Civil Engineer School.

Capt. Danielle Tabb 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.

Tabb is a project management instructor in AFIT’s Civil Engineer School. She displayed unprecedented creativity to achieve student learning objectives to overcome distance learning challenges and increase student participation during pandemic operations. Using gamification tools, she authored an instructor guide for the hands-on and immersive Project Safety";Escape Room" lesson in the Air Force Civil Engineer Initial Skills course, effectively increasing student exam and homework scores from 43% to 85%.

Because of her innovative mindset, Tabb was selected to present";Synchronous and Asynchronous Project Management Gamification" at the 2022 Air Force Learning Professionals' Consortium. In addition, Tabb developed a";choose your own path" scenario for the Introduction to Project Management course that enhanced comprehension and application levels of learning for 697 students. She increased student accessibility by 80% through embedding this scenario in the learning management system.

Dr. Christine Schubert Kabban 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.

Schubert Kabban is a professor of statistics in AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management where she teaches courses on applied statistical data analysis, applied general linear models, theory of probability, and nonparametric statistics. She exhibited outstanding leadership in classroom teaching and course development, earning her an amazing 4.78 out of five possible on the online student evaluation system. A prolific author, she published critical articles that addressed important applications that advance the Air Force, such as of protection strategies aimed at extending the lifespan of critical infrastructure elements. Schubert Kabban chaired the Graduate Applied Mathematics Curriculum Committee and served as academic advisor to all mathematics students, providing new students with wise counsel and mentorship, as she aided them in setting up their education plans.

Capt. Samuel Joslin 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.

Joslin is a mechanical systems instructor in AFIT’s Civil Engineer School. In his first year, he single-handedly executed the two-instructor mechanical engineering portfolio for eight months. As the largest of the technical engineering portfolios, he directed five course offerings and taught an additional seven courses for a total of 112 hours of live instruction to 408 students. Joslin significantly revamped the Introduction to Mechanical Systems course curriculum after the original became corrupted and was no longer accessible. He created six new lessons and re-formatted an additional 13 lessons. His quick thinking and long hours saved the course for 72 students.

As the director of the officer field education portion of the Civil Engineer Officer Initials Skills course, Joslin led 15 officer cadre and 25 enlisted trainers through a seven-day contingency field training capstone that cycled 63 new civil engineer officers through 54 hours of full spectrum capabilities.