The Remarkable People of AURA

Stephen Cunnion

Steve Cunnion, Ph.D., M.D. is a retired Navy Captain, a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Study, Chief Medical Officer for NeuroRx, a partner for the Diogenic Group, a co-founder of iJet.com, and a Senior Medical Advisor for AURA Technologies. With over forty years of involvement in infectious disease, Dr. Cunnion was introduced to tropical medicine in 1970 as an Army combat medic assigned to the Ministry of Health in South Viet Nam. Dr. Cunnion was the scientist/physician for a joint DoD/State Department Chemical Biological Investigation Team in Thailand investigating allegations of biological and chemical use in Laos, Cambodia, and Afghanistan and assisting the Thai military in malaria and HIV control. He has held other positions as a professor at the Uniformed Services University teaching outbreak investigations and malaria epidemiology and the Director of Preventive Medicine and Occupational Health at the Bureau of Medicine. He received the2003 ProMED Reporting Award for being the first person to alert the Western world of the disease outbreak known as SARS.

Tom McDermott

Tom McDermott is a leader, educator, and innovator in multiple technology fields. He currently serves as Deputy Director of the Systems Engineering Research Center at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, as well as a consultant specializing in strategic planning for uncertain environments. He has over 30 years of experience in technical and management disciplines, including extensive experience at the Georgia Institute of Technology and with Lockheed Martin in roles as Chief Engineer and Program Manager for the F-22 Raptor Avionics Team. Additionally, he held the position of GTRI’s Director of Research and interim Director from 2007-2013. Tom’s current research activities focus on innovation models, strategic foresight techniques, system data analytics, and modeling and simulation of policy implications in current and future complex systems. Tom is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, with degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering. Tom is also one of the creators of Georgia Tech’s Professional Master’s degree in Applied Systems Engineering and lead instructor of the “Leading Systems Engineering Teams” course.

Dave Kasik

Dave Kasik was formerly Boeing’s Senior Technical Fellow in visualization and interactive techniques until his 2016 retirement. He developed the first user interface management system to simplify application programming. His work with 3D graphics ranges from computer animation and device drivers to massive model visualization tools and techniques. He pioneered the use of visual analytics to help extract more business insight from complex non-geometric data. Mr. Kasik also has extensive experience in the digital management of manufacturing data. Dave earned his Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Colorado in 1972 and a Bachelors in Quantitative Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 1970. He is an ACM Fellow and involved in professional activities with ACM and IEEE.

Frank Culbertson, Jr.

Frank Lee Culbertson Jr. (Capt. USN, Ret.) is a former American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut, and graduate of the US Naval Academy. He served as the Commander of the International Space Station in 2001. Most recently, Mr. Culbertson held the position of President of the Space Systems Group at Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. There he was responsible for the execution, business development, and financial performance of the company’s human spaceflight, science, commercial communications, and national security satellite activities. Mr. Culbertson was named Deputy Program Manager, Phase 1 Shuttle-Mir, and became Manager of the Shuttle-Mir Program and spent one year as Deputy Program Manager for Operations of the International Space Station Program. A recipient of numerous awards, including the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, and the Navy and Air Force Commendation Medals; Culbertson was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2010, the South Carolina Aviation Hall of Fame in 1997, and was designated a Fellow of AIAA in 2013.

Vince Matrisciano

Vince Matrisciano is AURA’s Senior Technical Advisor for Military Systems. Mr. Matrisciano has over thirty-two years of experience as a civilian employee of the US Army, working the entire lifecycle of products including design, integration, production, product improvement, operational usage & logistics, and disposal. Throughout his career he has worked extensively on a variety of weapons systems, including main battle tanks, mortars, artillery, small & medium caliber, emplaced munitions, and software intensive systems. Mr. Matrisciano was a founding member of a newly formed internal project management office, and was instrumental in defining project management policy, procedures, templates, and training for the organization. During his career, Mr. Matrisciano has participated in various conferences, working groups and cross organizational teams in the areas of systems engineering, advanced manufacturing/manufacturing technology, logistics, and industrial base/supply chain. He was the chair of the Joint Munitions Technical Advisory Board, supporting the Office of the Secretary of Defense in managing research and development collaboration with National Laboratories within the Department of Energy.

Vince holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute, as well as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification from the US Army.

Phillip Lacombe

Phillip Lacombe has extensive experience developing and managing security services businesses as a co-founder of Secure Missions Solutions (SMS) and the former head of Cyber Initiative at Parsons Corporation. Mr. Lacombe was President at Veridian Corporation’s cyber sector, Vice President and manager of GD’s cybersecurity business line, Senior Vice President and General Manager of SAIC’s integrated security business unit, and Executive Vice President of Integrated Security Solutions of Olive Group FZ-LLC. Phil also served as the Director of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, providing recommendations to the President and supporting the government’s initial critical infrastructure and nationwide cyber protection actions. He was also a founding director and President of the Information Technology – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC). Phil is a retired US Air Force Colonel, a graduate of the National War College, the University of North Carolina (MA), and the University of Massachusetts.

Thomas R. Kurfess

Dr. Thomas Kurfess received his S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from M.I.T and is a chaired professor at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Mr. Kurfess served as the Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America. He has served as a special consultant of the United Nations to the Government of Malaysia and as a participating guest at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in their Precision Engineering Program. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, and on the Board of Trustees for the MT Connect Institute. He has received numerous awards including a National Science Foundation (NSF) Young Investigator Award, an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship Award, the ASME Pi Tau Sigma Award, SME Young Manufacturing Engineer of the Year Award, the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award, the ASME Gustus L. Larson Award, an ASME Swanson Federal Award, and the SME Education Award.

Igor Jablokov

Igor Jablokov is the Founder and CEO of start-up Pryon Inc., an advanced AI company. He is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) for Blackstone NC, a regional initiative focused on accelerating the commercialization of academic research backed by the Blackstone Foundation, Duke University, NC State University, and The University of North Carolina. He was awarded Eisenhower and Truman National Security Fellowships to deepen collaboration between government and industry. Previously, Igor was founder and CEO of Yap, an institutionally-funded venture that pioneered cloud-based speech recognition. The startup was subsequently acquired by Amazon and is integrated into successful products such as the Alexa Voice Service platform, the Echo speaker, and the Fire TV set-top box. As Program Director of IBM’smultimodal research group, Igor led the team that invented the world’s first ever speech-enabled Web browser. With over two dozen patents issued and pending, he was named an industry luminary by Speech Technology Magazine and an outstanding engineering alumnus of Penn State. Igor holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from The University of North Carolina.

Alton D. Romig, Jr. (Emeritus)

Dr. Romig is the Executive Officer of the National Academy of Engineering. Under the Congressional charter, the Academy provides advice to the federal government on matters of engineering and technology. Dr. Romig served as Vice President and General Manager of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Advanced Development Programs, better known as the Skunk Works^®. He spent the majority of his career at Sandia National Laboratories, operated by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, and he joined Sandia as a Member of the Technical Staff in 1979, became Executive Vice President in 2005, then served as the Deputy Laboratories Director and Chief Operating Officer until 2010. Dr. Romig received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Lehigh University, and is a Fellow of ASM International, TMS, IEEE, AIAA, and AAAS. Dr. Romig was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003 and the Council of Foreign Relations in 2008. He was awarded the ASM Silver Medal for Materials Research in 1988.