The Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management has completed the academic year 2017-18 promotion and tenure (P&T) cycle.  AFIT’s Provost, Dr. Sivaguru Sritharan, recognized the four faculty members who underwent a rigorous evaluation of their teaching, scholarship and service and have received a promotion in academic rank.  They are creative and productive scholars within their chosen fields, wholly dedicated to the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge, and effective instructors who have successfully mentored many masters and doctoral students.  Collectively, the four faculty members have more than 284 publications and advised more than 235 AFIT students.

Dr. Michael Grimaila, Head, Department of Systems Engineering and Management, Dr. Sivaguru Sritharan, Provost, Dr. John Colombi, Professor of Systems Engineering, and Dr. Adedeji Badiru, Dean, Graduate School of Engineering and Management

Dr. John Colombi was promoted to Professor of Systems Engineering within the Department of Systems Engineering and Management.  Dr. Colombi is an AFIT alum having earned a master’s degree in 1992 where he was a distinguished graduate, and a doctorate in 1996, both in electrical engineering.

Upon graduation, he served in various capacities associated with developmental engineering, project engineering, and research and development as a Biometric Design Engineer.

He served as the Chief of the Defensive Information Operations Research Team at the National Security Agency, Chief Engineer of the Airborne Warning and Control System Division, and in 2001 he was promoted to Program Manager of C2 Enterprise Programming. 

In 2003, Dr. Colombi returned to AFIT and joined the faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as a Military Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering.  While at AFIT, he advised master's and doctoral students in research of applied Systems Engineering (SE) to a variety of sponsored DoD and AF projects.  During this time, he also developed, refined and taught core graduate SE curriculum, including distance learning and short courses; published and provided expertise in SE; served as Program Manager and editor for several systems case studies; and supported the academic/educational mission of the Air Force Center for Systems Engineering.

In 2007, Dr. Colombi retired from the military as a Lieutenant Colonel and became a contractor for Riverside Research Institute. In the year that followed, he served as Adjunct Assistant Professor at AFIT supporting the SE program as a contract faculty involved with master's and doctoral student's research on a variety of sponsored DoD projects.  In July 2008, Dr. Colombi joined the faculty in the Department of Systems Engineering and Management at AFIT as an Assistant Professor of Systems Engineering.  In October 2014, Dr. Colombi received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor and was appointed as Program Chair for Systems Engineering which now includes management and oversight of four programs:  the AFMC-sponsored SE Certificate, the Master of Engineering in Applied SE, the Master of Science in SE and the SE Doctoral program. 

Dr. Colombi has taught more than 82 graduate course sections, comprising 18 different courses and 14 special studies for master’s and doctoral students. He supported the creation and teaching of the Unmanned Air Systems design track.

As a research advisor, Dr. Colombi has successfully graduated four Ph.D. students, including the first AFIT SE doctoral student in 2008, 161 master’s students on 97 projects, and participated on 113 student committees.

His research interests are diverse including model-based engineering, systems and enterprise architectural analysis, complex adaptive systems/system science, cooperative unmanned air systems and autonomy, acquisition process research, and human systems integration.  A vast majority of his research has been on DoD/Air Force";project-based" efforts that are both highly relevant in support of DoD/AF missions and provides needed analysis to real problems.

Dr. Colombi has served as a principal investigator (Pl) or Co-PI on 31 funded research proposals at AFIT for an approximate total of $4.02M in external funding.  His sponsored research has resulted in over 100 publications. These include 35 peer-reviewed journals, with three more submitted in 2017, 72 peer-reviewed conference papers, 12 edited magazines, three book chapters (two more submitted), and 26 other conference presentations/reviewed abstracts.  In 2018, Dr. Colombi became a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
 

Dr. Bradley Liebst, Head, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Dr. Sivaguru Sritharan, Provost, Dr. Robert Greendyke, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, and Dr. Adedeji Badiru, Dean, Graduate School of Engineering and Management

Dr. Robert Greendyke was promoted to Professor of Aerospace Engineering within the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.  He earned a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1998 in Interdisciplinary Engineering (Joint Aerospace/Mechanical).  Previous to employment at AFIT, Dr. Greendyke was a contract Research Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center’s Aerothermodynamics Branch. After NASA, he taught for seven years at the University of Texas at Tyler where he was twice voted “Professor of the Year” in the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences.

Dr. Greendyke joined AFIT faculty in 2005 as the Director of Scientist and Engineer Education Programs at Kirtland AFB, NM, and in 2007 he moved to AFIT’s main campus at Wright-Patterson AFB as an Associate Professor.  Dr. Greendyke has advised four PhD graduates with four more in progress.  In addition, 33 master’s students have graduated under his mentorship with an additional five in progress.  He has taught course sequences in aerodynamics, computational fluid dynamics, hypersonics and air weapons.  He has taken responsibility to rewrite curriculum and enhance the academic rigor of many of the courses.

Dr. Greendyke is an internationally recognized specialist in hypersonics research.  His research interests are in the field of computational fluid dynamics with specialties in hypersonic re-entry flows, rarefied gas dynamics, plasma flows, and molecular computational methods.  He has developed successful research relationships with AFOSR and AFRL in the hypersonic research field and with various sponsors in the Air Weapons field that have led to external funded grants totally more than $1.07M.

He has published 23 refereed journal articles, 50 conference papers, seven invited papers, one book chapter, and five technical reports.  Dr. Greendyke also serves as a journal reviewer for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Journal, the Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, and Carbon.

Dr. Greendyke is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and a member of several professional societies including the American Physics Society, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and The American Society for Engineering Education.
 

Dr. Kenneth Hopkinson, Interim Head, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Sivaguru Sritharan, Provost, Dr. Scott Graham, Associate Professor of Computer Engineering, and Dr. Adedeji Badiru, Dean, Graduate School of Engineering and Management

Dr. Scott Graham was promoted to Associate Professor of Computer Engineering with academic tenure in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  Dr. Graham earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from AFIT in 1999 and his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004.  He served a military faculty assignment at AFIT from 2004 to 2008 and joined the faculty as a civilian in 2015. 

The principal courses that Dr. Graham teaches are Computer Communication Networks and Design Principles of Computer Architecture.  These courses are rigorous treatments of foundational computing and networking principles.

Dr. Graham’s research interests are in the intersection between real physical systems and the computers that control them; specifically cyber physical systems security, embedded computing, computer communication networks, and vehicular cyber security.  His research has supported 11 funded projects totaling over $1.5M, including $360K in personal funding.

Dr. Graham has authored 16 peer-reviewed journal articles (14 in print with two under revision/review, six of which he is the first author) and contributed to 32 peer-reviewed conference papers (13 of which he is the first author).

Dr. Graham has advised 21 master’s students (14 complete, seven in-progress) and four doctoral students (one complete and three in-progress).  He was the Air University Category III Civilian of the Quarter, the AFIT Category III Civilian of the Quarter in 2017, and received the AF Science & Engineering Team Award in 2011.  He serves as the Principal Investigator for the Center of Academic Excellence Cyber Operations and the Cyber-Physical Systems Laboratory and a Technical Reviewer for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Association of Computing Machinery, Journal of Computers and Security, and the International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection.
 

Lt Col Logan Mailloux was promoted to Associate Professor of Systems Engineering with academic tenure within the Department of Systems Engineering and Management.  Lt Col Mailloux is an AFIT alum having earned a master’s degree in 2008 and a doctorate in 2015, both in systems engineering.  Before earning his PhD, Lt Col Mailloux was the Communications Flight Commander for the 705th Combat Training Squadron at Kirtland AFB, NM, and a software systems test director and C4ISR test engineer for the AF Operational Test and Evaluation Center.  In the summer of 2018, Lt Col Mailloux PCS’d to AFOSR’s European Office of Aerospace Research and Development to serve as Deputy Commander of RAF Blenheim Crescent in London, United Kingdom.

In the classroom, Lt Col Mailloux taught graduate courses in software engineering, cybersecurity, data communications, and system architectures.  He also created a weapon systems security track in response to urgent USAF needs. He has advised eight students and served on nine committees across four AFIT departments and collaborated with students from the National Intelligence University and the United States Military Academy at West Point.  His outstanding performance culminated in winning the AFIT Military Instructor of the Year award in 2017 and selection to lead AFIT’s first in-residence Senior Developmental Education pilot program for AFMC.

Lt Col Mailloux published 28 peer reviewed journal articles (24 first or student advisee), 19 conference papers (13 first author or student advisee), two technical reports, and one book chapter.  His research interests include systems security engineering, cybersecurity, cyber-physical system resiliency, quantum key distribution, quantum information science, and Live-Virtual-Constructive simulation.
 
Lt Col Mailloux supported four research projects for over $1.8M in funding with a personal share of $144K.  He performed world-class research for the Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences, Sandia National Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Air Force Research Laboratory, National Air and Space Intelligence Center, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and the USAF Cyber Technical Center of Excellence.

Lt Col Mailloux served as an editor for a special issue of the Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, a track chair for the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers conference, and a technical program committee member for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Systems Conference.  He is a senior member of IEEE, a member of International Council on Systems Engineering, and a member of the engineering honor societies Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi.