When
Thursday, October 17, 2024 - 2:00 p.m.
Bonnie Johnson
Research Lead and Senior Lecturer
Systems Engineering Department
Naval Postgraduate School
"Systems Thinking and Analysis for Applying Innovative Technology to Naval Missions: Artificial Intelligence, Directed Energy, Autonomous Systems and More"
ENGR Building, Room 301
Abstract: The world today is grappling with highly complex problems, exacerbated by the intricate interplay between societies, economies, environments, and technological systems. National and global security is currently at heightened risk with escalating regional conflicts, military build-ups and weapon technology proliferation. The United States Navy is not exempt from these wicked challenges – as it strives to meet its mission priorities of ensuring global maritime security, deterring aggression and protecting United States interests globally through a credible and capable fleet. Technology advances play a huge role in this complex ecosystem – both as warfare systems that the Navy develops as mission capabilities; and as evolving threats that come in many forms. Threat technologies extend the Navy’s operational domain well beyond the maritime – to include threats from the land and air, the cyber domain and even the space domain. The Navy must develop and deploy advanced technology warfare systems to meet mission needs in multi-domain threat environments. At the Naval Postgraduate School, systems engineering researchers are applying systems thinking and systems analysis to explore and design emerging innovative technologies as solutions to the Navy’s wicked problems. Dr. Johnson will explain how systems engineering research methods are being applied to develop and assess the capabilities and limitations of advanced warfare technologies. Dr. Johnson will present examples involving artificial intelligence, directed energy weapon systems, autonomous systems, and more.
Bio: Bonnie Johnson is a research lead and senior lecturer with the Systems Engineering Department at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). She has a BS in physics from Virginia Tech, an MS in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins, and a PhD in systems engineering from NPS. She leads research projects for ONR, OPNAV, Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force sponsors in directed energy systems and warfare, automated battle management aids, artificial intelligence applications, and complex adaptive systems. Prior to working at NPS, she was a senior systems engineer with Northrop Grumman and SAIC, working on Naval and Joint air and missile defense systems. Bonnie is the associate editor of ASNE's Naval Engineers' Journal for unmanned autonomous systems. She recently won the Richard W. Hamming Faculty Award in 2022 for Interdisciplinary Achievement at NPS.