3rd row

Dr. Owen Brown is the Vice President of Mission Solution Development at Scientific Systems.  His primary responsibilities include the conceptualization, development, and implementation of  disruptive prototypes and demonstrations of revolutionary solutions for SSCI customers’ most challenging missions. Overall, the focus is 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.

Previous to joining Scientific Systems, Dr. Brown was a Program Manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he led the MiTEx space demonstration and created the fractionated spacecraft architecture concept culminating in the System F6 program.  He was the Chief Technology Officer of KTSi (later SAIC), where he provided senior military leadership advice on advanced space programs. He served as a committee member of the National Academy of Sciences National Security Space Defense and Protection project, and led a congressional report on space traffic management.  Brown served on active duty as a nuclear submarine officer and retired from the US Navy Reserve as an Engineering Duty Officer.

A former researcher at NASA Ames, he holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Hsiao is responsible for setting technology directions and leading algorithm-focused teams, especially on topics like Collaborative Autonomy, Adversary-Aware Autonomy, Mission Autonomy, Reinforcement Learning, and Mission Plan Optimization.  Since joining SSCI, he has led a variety of programs funded by DARPA, Air Force, Navy, and other DoD offices.  Dr. Hsiao holds a B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. from MIT.

David “Heat” Lyons is Vice President of Business Development. He leads the go-to-market team by overseeing efforts to identify and execute target market opportunities in the Products Division in line with corporate strategic objectives. Mr. Lyons brings a long and distinguished record of success through 30 years of experience in the defense and aerospace industries.

Mr. Lyons is a retired United States Air Force Colonel who commanded at the squadron, group, and installation level, in and out of combat. As an F-16 Fighter Pilot, he is a graduate of and later returned as an instructor to the United States Air Force Weapons School. He served in staff assignments at Checkmate – Headquarters Air Force, Sub-Unified Combatant Command, and the Joint Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation level at DARPA. Prior to Scientific Systems, he served as the Growth Lead for Spectrum Systems, Mercury Systems, where he opened a new $200M product line by repurposing existing technology to fill a critical government requirement.

Mr. Lyons holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the United States Air Force Academy, an MBA from TUI University, and a Master of Arts from the Naval War College. He is a graduate of the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School and was a National Defense Fellow at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Dr. Jeff Ridder is Chief Scientist, Autonomy Systems at SSCI. His primary responsibility is to provide the strategy and vision to shepherd autonomy technologies from R&D to products and programs of record. His particular focus is on autonomy and battle management for multi-domain command and control, air domain and electronic warfare collaborative autonomy.  He has over 30 years of leadership and technology development experience in government R&D labs, federally funded research and development centers, and large and small aerospace and defense companies. He has been a key performer on multiple major DoD studies resulting in major programs of record; led multiple S&T programs with DARPA, ONR and AFRL in battle management, collaborative autonomy, and electronic warfare; developed a distributed, multi-domain battle management reference architecture for a major prime contractor with application in multiple significant programs; and worked on the Space Shuttle rocket motors now adapted for Artemis. He holds BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.