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SSCI Appoints Dr. Scott Littlefield as Chief Engineer for Maritime Programs

Dr. Scott Littlefield headshot


SSCI welcomes Scott Littlefield to the Woburn, MA office.  L to R:  Sanjeev Seereeram, Scott Littlefield, Kunal Mehra, Owen Brown

WOBURN, Mass., June 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI), an industry leader and pioneer in advanced intelligent autonomous systems, announced today that Dr. Scott Littlefield has joined the company as Chief Engineer for Maritime Programs. In this role he will be responsible for strategic development, customer engagement, and technology solution implementation for all company programs focused on maritime applications. Scott brings a well-regarded background of proven leadership, entrepreneurship, program management excellence, and technical expertise, in the defense community.

As a former Program Manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Scott created and managed radically innovative and highly successful autonomous maritime systems for national defense. Notably, he managed the ASW Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program, which prototyped a large unmanned surface vessel for Navy missions. In his role, Scott managed all aspects of the design, construction, and at-sea testing of the vessel and led the technical development and integration of a complex suite of autonomy software to enable the vessel to comply with COLREGS, the “rules of the road” at sea. ACTUV has since transitioned to Sea Hunter to inform an upcoming Navy acquisition program for large unmanned surface vessels. He also developed and managed the Hydra program, as well as managing the Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform (TEMP) effort. Prior to DARPA, Scott served in technical capacities as a Navy Civil Servant. For three years he acted as the Director of Technology and Innovation at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock. He held multiple program officer and director roles at the Office of Naval Research for over 16 years and served in program office and shipyard roles at the beginning of his career for Naval Sea Systems Command and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Most recently Scott has led robotic and autonomous systems programs at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Doctor of Engineering in Engineering Management from the George Washington University.

“We are incredibly excited to have Scott join our leadership team,” said SSCI CEO Dr. Raman Mehra. “Beginning with DARPA’s Collaborative Networks for Autonomous Systems (CNAV) program, SSCI has a great heritage of providing advanced AI/ML-enabled technologies for maritime solutions. Today we continue to do amazing things for our DARPA and Navy customers. Scott will now lead our efforts to further expand our leadership in the creation of new autonomy-focused advanced capabilities and trusted products for the maritime domain.”

“SSCI is a fantastic company with deep expertise in mission autonomy, machine learning, and perception. SSCI is well positioned to work on the key challenges that face the Navy as it moves toward an increasingly unmanned and autonomous force structure,” said Littlefield. “I’m excited to be part of the SSCI team and look forward to contributing to that effort.”

About Scientific Systems Company, Inc. 

Founded in 1990 and based in Woburn, MA, Scientific Systems Company Inc. (SSCI) invents disruptive technologies, develops revolutionary solutions, and builds trusted products for our customers’ most challenging missions. SSCI focuses on the creation of AI/ML enabled capabilities to command, control, communicate with, and manage composable collections of intelligent agents, smart sensors, and autonomous platforms across all domains.