NFCS Award Program

Early Career Award

The Early Career Award recognizes an "early career" presenter/author for making meaningful contributions to the Fire Control Community. Those new to the field in the last 7 years delivering and authoring an oral presentation are eligible for consideration of this award.

The Early Career award criteria are:

Technical or operational depth of material (25%)
Relevance to Fire Control (15%)
Potential impact of the technology (35%)
Ability to present and field questions (25%)

2018 Early Career winners will be announced early this summer.

2017 NFCS Early Career Winners

First Place: ENS Sam Lacinski, Assessment of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Boost-Phase Intercept of Ballistic Missiles, U.S. Navy

Second Place: Mr. Michael Molignano, Softkill Weapon Coordination for Ship Defense, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Third Place: Dr. Monica Montanari, Long-Range Doppler-Spread Clutter Mitigation in Over-the-Horizon Radars, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

David M. Altwegg Lifetime Achievement Award

This year we are establishing our most prestigious recognition: an annual Lifetime Achievement Award. It is meant to honor a person from Government, Industry, or Academia, who over a sustained period of time, nominally greater than 20 years, exemplified the following traits:

Made significant contributions to Fire Control
Technical and/or organizational leadership - Inspires others
Mentorship

In keeping with the very high stature of this award, it's being named after a person who embodies its meaning. We are proud to name this award the: David M. Altwegg Lifetime Achievement Award.

The National Fire Control Association is honored to present the first David M Altwegg Lifetime achievement award posthumously to David M. Altwegg. Mr. Altwegg was a pioneer in Naval fire control - a driving force behind creating the Forward Pass CONOPS, acquiring interceptor missiles, creating the Aegis fleet, and setting-up ashore infrastructure that led to NIFC-CA. He defined the modern acquisition spiral development approach as the MDA Executive Director. Throughout his 64 year career serving the DoD, RADM Altwegg left his mark on technologies, tactics and people. The National Fire Control Symposium itself is a testament to RADM Altwegg's belief that people and knowledge are imperatives.

Information will be posted soon on how to nominate a candidate for the next David M. Altwegg Lifetime Achievement Award.

Poster Award

The 2019 National Fire Control Symposium will once again present a Peer Reviewed Poster Award. All attendees will be able to cast their vote for the three best overall NFCS posters.

2018 NFCS Poster Award Winners

Congratulations to our 2018 Poster Winners!

First Place: Dr. Samantha Weiss, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, A Dynamic Programming Approach to the Pursuer-Evader-Decoy Problem

Second Place: 1st Lt Robert Gutierrez, Air Force Research Laboratory, Weaponeering in Augmented Reality

Third Place: Mr. George Kakas, Air Force Research Laboratory, Survey and Evaluation ELINT and ESM Systems with Integrated Photonics

2017 NFCS Poster Award Winners

Congratulations to our 2017 Poster Winners!

First Place: Mr. Marc Santoro, Agile Cybersecurity: A Modest Proposal, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division

Second Place: Mr. Samuel Lacinski, Assessment of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Boost-Phase Intercept of Ballistic Missiles, MIT Technology and Policy Program

Third Place: Ms. Katherine Souza, Lasercomms System for Mobile Terrestrial Applications, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

2016 NFCS Poster Award Winners

Congratulations to our 2016 Poster Winners!

First Place: Ms. Emily Anesta and Mr. Adam Schnabel, Real-Time Characterization of the Atmosphere in Support of Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW), MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Second Place: Mrs. Carol Lee, Cyber Defense Vulnerability Insight Laboratory (Cyber Devil): Moving the Culture of Software Development toward Security, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division

Third Place: Mrs. Anu Myne, The Broadband Challenge for Next Generation Electronic Warfare, MIT Lincoln Laboratory