Attending
Keynote Speakers
Gerald D. (Gerry) Griffin
Mr. Griffin is the former Director of the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston. In prior positions at NASA he served as the Deputy Director of the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Hugh F. Dryden Flight Research Center in California. Mr. Griffin also held the posts of Associate Administrator for External Relations and Assistant Administrator for Legislative Affairs at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC.
Mr. Griffin earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Texas A&M University (TAMU) in 1956 and was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force. After four years on active duty his career in space activities began in 1960 with the Lockheed Missile and Space Company. In the private sector, he also held engineering positions with Douglas Aircraft and General Dynamics/Fort Worth before he joined NASA in 1964.
After taking early retirement from NASA in 1986, Mr. Griffin was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Houston Chamber of Commerce, a post he held until 1989 when he joined Korn/Ferry International, a worldwide executive search firm, as the Managing Director of the firm's Houston office. Today, Mr. Griffin is a technical and management consultant for a broad range of clients. He remains a Senior Consultant for Korn/Ferry International where he conducts search assignments for very senior level executives primarily in the firm’s aerospace and defense practice. Mr. Griffin is currently a director and former Chairman of the Board of Comarco, Inc., Lake Forest, California, a public corporation (CMRO:Nasdaq) and a founding director of the Bank of the Hills, Kerrville, Texas. Mr. Griffin is currently an advisor with Astrolabe Ventures, a global venture capital fund devoted to investments in early stage, high technology companies whose products relate to the needs of the commercial aerospace sector. He is a former member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, a former trustee of the Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, Maryland, and a past president of the TAMU 12th Man Foundation.
During NASA's Apollo Program, Mr. Griffin was a Flight Director in Mission Control and served in this capacity for all of the Apollo manned missions. He was Lead Flight Director for three lunar landing missions: Apollo's 12, 15 and 17. During the flight of Apollo 13, Mr. Griffin was scheduled to lead the lunar landing team in Mission Control. When the landing was canceled as a result of the oxygen tank explosion, he led one of the teams of flight controllers who were responsible for the safe return of the astronauts. This real life experience led to Mr. Griffin being a technical advisor for the movie Apollo 13 (Universal). Later he was a technical advisor for and an actor in Contact (Warner Brothers) and Deep Impact, (Dreamworks/SKG). Mr. Griffin is a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Mr. Griffin is the recipient of the TAMU Distinguished Alumnus Award, the TAMU Corps of Cadets Hall of Honor Award, the TAMU College of Engineering Alumni Honor Award, the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Houston Clear Lake, and the Tau Beta Pi Eminent Engineer Award. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Astronautical Society.
Amy R. Pritchett, Sc.D.
Dr. Pritchett is the Davis S. Lewis Associate Professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, with a joint appointment in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. In 2008-2009 she served as director of the NASA Aviation Safety Program, where she Dr. Pritchett was responsible for the overall planning, management and evaluation of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's efforts to conduct high-quality, cutting-edge research that produces innovative concepts, methods and technologies to improve the intrinsic safety attributes of current and future aircraft and aviation operations, and to overcome aviation safety challenges that would otherwise constrain the full realization of the Next Generation Air Transportation System.
She is the founder and director of the Georgia Tech Cognitive Engineering Center where she conducts an interdisciplinary research and education program spanning several domains in aerospace including cognitive engineering, piloted control, flight mechanics, guidance, navigation, automatic control and aerospace design methods. Her research foci include: an application of knowledge of human cognition and performance in the design of aerospace systems to improve the human contribution to aviation safety and to human-machine system performance; innovative, intelligent flight deck systems with particular focus on safety systems such as collision avoidance and intelligent vehicle system monitoring; air traffic operations with particular focus to ensuring human performance is supported for large-scale system robustness; and novel methods of simulating large-scale systems, such as air traffic control systems, to examine system performance and safety in nominal and off-nominal conditions.
Dr. Pritchett is the author of over 170 technical publications and presentations and established seven new courses in cognitive engineering, air traffic control and aerospace simulation methods. She is the recipient of awards including the AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award for Top Young Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Tech Excellence Faculty Award, the RTCA William E. Jackson Award, Top Young Alumni of MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Wings Club of America Merit Award. She also represented NASA on the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) when it received the Collier Trophy. She serves on the Human Factors Sub-Committee of the FAA Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee, and has contributed to activities such the AIAA Digital Avionics Technical Committee, National Research Council Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, the Independent Assessment Team of the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO), and audits of the nation's aviation human factors research and development plans for NextGen by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Dr. Pritchett received bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992, 1994 and 1997, respectively.
Christopher Johnson, Ph.D.
Chris Johnson is Professor of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow, U.K. He is chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the SESAR programme (http://www.sesarju.eu/), which is the €2 billion European research and development programme to increase the capacity and safety of air transportation. He helped to write the guidelines for accident and incident investigation for European Air Traffic Management and is now developing similar guidance for the European Railways Agency. He also was part of the team that developed guidelines for contingency planning in Air Traffic Management across Europe. Prof. Johnson is also part of the European Commission's initiative to increase the resilience of fixed and mobile telecommunications and the Internet. He has authored more than 200 peer reviewed papers and has published a shareware book on incident investigation techniques (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~johnson/book).
The SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) programme is helping to reshape the future of aviation across Europe. The objective of this joint undertaking between the European Commission and EUROCONTROL is to provide a roadmap for the modernization of air traffic management. The SESAR initiatives will develop new systems that are intended to deliver increased levels of safety and capacity over the next thirty years. It will also help to meet stringent environmental requirements and at the same time reduce the costs of air traffic management. This talk will provide a personal view of the future concepts within the SESAR programme. It is important to balance the optimism expressed by the proponents of technological innovation with the lessons learned from previous accidents. In particular, I will contrast recent mishaps involving civil and military Unmanned Airborne Systems with the more ‘mundane’ failures that continue to undermine Air-Ground communications through existing ATM infrastructures. The intention is to map out the challenges that arise both from innovation and the increasing complexity as we move towards the next generation of air traffic systems. (This talk is intended to be controversial, it will present personal views and does not necessarily reflect the official views of the SESAR programme).
