AFIT Senior Military Faculty members from left: Lt. Col. Robert Bettinger,
Maj. Daniel Emmons, and Lt. Col. Milo Hyde. (Contributed photo)

Three Air Force Institute of Technology military faculty members recently received senior military faculty (SMF) status within the Graduate School of Engineering and Management. As SMF members, Lt. Col. Robert Bettinger, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering; Maj. Daniel Emmons, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Physics; and Lt. Col. Milo Hyde, Ph.D., Professor of Optical Physics, will remain in their respective positions as active-duty faculty until they separate or retire from the Air Force.

In 2019, the Graduate School named its first permanent senior military faculty member, Lt. Col. James Rutledge, Ph.D., P.E., Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering. Rutledge retired from the Air Force in 2022 and applied to a position at AFIT as civilian faculty member in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The successful outcome of Rutledge’s SMF service led the Graduate School to continue offering its unique SMF program. SMF members are encouraged to contribute to requirements beyond their academic departments for the improvement of the Institution. Lt. Col. Hyde has led an AFIT-level tiger team to investigate strategic learning management system considerations and Lt. Col. Bettinger and Maj. Emmons are currently coordinating the Graduate School’s outreach efforts.

“AFIT’s Senior Military Faculty program is approved for the scientist, developmental engineer, and acquisition officer career fields. The program allows selected military faculty within the Graduate School to extend their faculty tours indefinitely. SMF members are an important piece of the AFIT faculty composition. They are valued for their active-duty military perspective and the additional stability they bring to the academic department. It is a huge win for both the Institution and the Department of the Air Force to be able to keep these exceptional performers as long-term faculty members," said Col. Shawn Willis, Graduate School of Engineering and Management Associate Dean.

LT. COL. ROBERT BETTINGER, PHD, USAF
Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering

In addition to his role as SMF and Associate Professor, Lt. Col. Bettinger serves as the Chair of AFIT’s Graduate Astronautical Engineering degree program and the Graduate Certificate in Space Vehicle Design program. He also leads the Graduate School’s outreach initiative.

Bettinger’s diverse research efforts have produced published papers and conference proceedings relating to cislunar and multi-body dynamics, space debris propagation dynamics in the cislunar and lunar environments, spacecraft survivability and reliability, atmospheric reentry dynamics, novel space system payloads and structures, and space law and policy. These interests have led Bettinger to develop three new graduate-level courses at AFIT, each intending to deliver a unique and relevant educational experience to Guardians, Airmen, and civilian students in the fields of spacecraft survivability, spacecraft reverse engineering, and advanced multi-body dynamics.

Becoming an SMF member was an aspiration for Bettinger since he joined the AFIT faculty in 2017. “Being able to work with students and pushing the bounds of technology and innovation every day is an incredible opportunity,” Bettinger said. “Nothing beats seeing students realize a breakthrough in their research. When a student’s months-long dedication of late nights and missteps while churning a given problem is turned into a smile of accomplishment and a frantic exclamation of ‘It worked!,’ that makes it all worth while,” Bettinger said.

Bettinger continues to push his students into new and exciting areas of research. Some of his students examined the use of origami structures for deployable space-based mirrors, the use of aerobraking in cislunar operations, the design of positioning, navigation, and timing architectures for cislunar and lunar operations, and designed a chassis structure for a 27U CubeSat.

Additional career accomplishments include:
• Three patents awarded and two patent applications submitted since Fall 2023, most of which are collaborations with students who are listed as lead inventors.

• He advised 33 M.S. students and two Ph.D. students as of March 2024.

• Approximately $2.9M awarded in DoD-related research grants.

• 38 scholarly journal publications and 57 conference papers.

MAJ. DANIEL EMMONS, PHD, USAF
Associate Professor of Physics

Maj. Daniel Emmons is the director of the Department of Defense’s only graduate-level space physics program. His research is focused primarily on remote sensing disturbances in the Earth’s ionosphere, with further interests in solar energetic particles (SEPs), conditions for magnetic reconnection in the solar corona, and plasma kinetics for gas lasers. Emmons has published 29 peer-reviewed journal articles and secured over $2.3M in research grants from the DoD and NASA. As of March 2024, he has advised 10 Master’s and two PhD students. His teaching and mentoring culminated in the Outstanding Science and Engineering Educator Award for the Department of the Air Force in 2022.

Before joining the AFIT faculty in 2017, Emmons served two tours in AFRL and received a master’s and Ph.D. from AFIT’s Applied Physics program. While he genuinely enjoyed the research experience and technical leadership at AFRL, his true passion has been working with AFIT students. “I have a tough time imagining a more fulfilling job. Not only do we get to solve challenging technical problems for the DoD, but we also get to work with some of the sharpest and hardest working students in the world,” Emmons said.

His unique background as the oldest child of two enlisted Marines has shaped his outlook on life and military careers. “At first, I couldn’t believe that the SMF billets were real,” Emmons explained. “Growing up around the Marines, I was shocked that the Air Force would allow somebody to be a long-term physics professor on active duty. Upon learning about the SMF program, I immediately knew that’s what I wanted to achieve.”

Emmons is excited for the opportunity to join the small group of AFIT SMF members, and he is looking forward to spending many more years mentoring young officers and tackling challenging problems for the DoD.

LT. COL. MILO HYDE, PHD, USAF
Professor of Optical Physics

Lt. Col. Hyde has served as a tenured professor in two AFIT Graduate School of Engineering departments and is the fourth active duty military member at AFIT to receive promotion to full Professor. He received a B.S. degree in computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2001 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from AFIT in 2006 and 2010, respectively.

Hyde has received several teaching and research awards including the Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teaching Award, the Military Officers Association of America Outstanding Military Faculty Award, the Air Force Association General Bernard A. Schriever Award, and the Chancellor’s Innovation Excellence Senior Faculty Award. In addition, he is a Senior Member of IEEE, Optica, and SPIE.

While at AFIT, Hyde has received $4M in funding and led several research projects studying optical beam control techniques for directed energy applications. He is regarded as an expert in the field and has over 150 publications on the subject as well as numerous invited presentations at international conferences. In addition, he recently published a book on statistical optics and holds one patent. Hyde’s former students have themselves become leaders in optics, including Director of the Joint Directed Energy Transition Office and senior researchers/officers at the Air Force Research Laboratory. “There is no greater judge of your teaching quality than the success of your students, and I’m extremely proud of what they’ve achieved since leaving AFIT,” Hyde commented. “I am absolutely honored that AFIT entrusted me with a Senior Military Faculty position. It truly is a special place and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”