Scott McCrea, Participant

Scott McCrea is the Chief Engineer for Product Security at Honeywell Aerospace.  Scott has 35 years of space, aerospace and flight test experience working alongside engineering, management and executive teams of commercial and defense companies. Scott specializes in deploying advanced security technology and is responsible for educating other employees on using secure processes to design, test and validate avionics, support equipment, data processing and experimental/prototype products. Scott is a powerful force in the workplace and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. Scott is inspired daily by his wife, their two adult children and his exceptional coworkers. Scott holds a bachelors in Business Management, a master’s degree in Information Systems and Computer Security In his free time, Scott likes to Restore antique telephones, restore air cooled Volkswagens, restore Victor Talking Machines, restore antique British cars and motorcycles, fiddle with a guitar from time to time, and fly small aircraft when time and budgets permit.https://commons.erau.edu/avcysecworkshop-bios-2025/1032/thumbnail.jp

Nayyar Rao, Participant

Nayyar Rao is a Senior Chief Engineer for Connected Aircrafts and Services at Honeywell Aerospace. He has been at Honeywell for over two decades and prior to the Chief Engineering responsibilities, Nayyar has held multiple engineering and leadership positions in the Communication, Navigation and Surveillance business of Honeywell. He is responsible and the signatory approver for design and development of connectivity enablers like gateways, edges, edge nodes, etc., which enable connectivity between onboard and off-board systems. Nayyar’s responsibilities also include Connected Aircraft Service Offerings, Cloud Platform Architectures, end to end cybersecurity and connectivity solutions. Nayyar also drives Data Engineering, Data Strategies and Governance mechanisms at Honeywell. Prior to Honeywell, Nayyar worked with the Ministry of Defense in India developing Fuel Gauging Systems and Night Vision Imaging Systems for military platforms. Nayyar holds multiple degrees (BS in electrical engineering, MS in computer science, and MBA) and is a member of Aeronautical Society of India, AOPA and the PMI. He is a Certified Six Sigma Green Belt and Certified Design Thinking Trainer. Nayyar is passionate about the STEM initiatives at Honeywell and is very actively involved with the Paradise Valley School District and the Mesa School District. Nayyar sits on the Advisory boards of a few Universities for regulating course content and mentoring. In his spare time, he enjoys tinkering with automobiles, performance upgrades, detailing, and competitive motorsports.https://commons.erau.edu/avcysecworkshop-bios-2025/1043/thumbnail.jp

Dr. Ron Madler, Participant

Ron Madler has been on the Aerospace Engineering faculty in the College of Engineering, at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ since 1994.  He served as dean from 2010 until 2023. He has teaching responsibilities in the Aerospace Engineering Department. His primary professional interests are in Engineering Education, Orbital Debris, Astrodynamics, Spacecraft Design, and Space Exploration.https://commons.erau.edu/avcysecworkshop-bios-2025/1027/thumbnail.jp

Dr. Jon Haass, Participant

Jon C. Haass was the founding faculty and served as department chair of the Cyber Intelligence and Security degree programs at the nation’s first College of Security and Intelligence at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. He served for more than two years as the interim Dean of the College, succeeding founding Dean Philip E. Jones.  His vision for the Cyber department is to build upon the success as both a NSA/DHS designated Center of Academic Excellence and ABET accredited program through outreach to improve the national and international reputation through excellence in our graduates, impactful publications and grants, expansion of offerings in its degree programs and increased partnerships with private and public organizations. Dr. Haass was appointed by Governor Ducey to represent northern Arizona on the Arizona Cybersecurity Team. He also serves as advisory board member for the Arizona Cyber Threat Response Alliance (ACTRA), a regional information sharing and analysis organization that includes companies in 14 of the critical infrastructure sectors, including aviation. His areas of research interest include the security issues associated with connected cyber-physical systems that encompass airplanes, cars, industrial controls and more. This Internet of Things (IoT) is likely to open an even larger portion of societies systems to cyber based attacks requiring us to educate our students, developers and leaders to the importance of this relatively new domain using machine learning and AI methods. Since 2017, he has promoted the concept of The Center for the Future , an incubation, innovation and acceleration space for companies that would collaborate with the students and faculty of the campus, creating high quality jobs in the greater Prescott region. With former Chancellor Frank Ayers this was successfully presented in March 2019 to the Prescott City Council, in August 2020 the Council approved allocating funds to seed the concept. In partnership with fiscal sponsor Prescott Chamber Foundation and numerous other organizations Prescott Regional Opportunity Foundation and its Center project has operations in downtown Prescott, celebrating it\u27s two year anniversary this past July 2023.https://commons.erau.edu/avcysecworkshop-bios-2025/1020/thumbnail.jp

1967 5BFTS First Reunion Dinner. October 14.

The First Reunion Dinner for RAF pilots who had trained at 5BFTS during WW2 was held on October 14, 1967, at the Royal Aero Club, London. This image is annotated “Occasionally we drank (i)”https://commons.erau.edu/bfts-1967-dinner-images/1015/thumbnail.jp

1967 5BFTS First Reunion Dinner Letter (April 1967) from MoD tracking those at 5BFTS

The First Reunion Dinner for RAF pilots who had trained at 5BFTS during WW2 was held on October 14, 1967, at the Royal Aero Club, London. This letter, dated April 28, 1967, is from the Ministry of Defence in response to a request to help track down those who had been at 5BFTS so that they could be invited to the Reunion

AI: Leveraging the Power of Computer Intelligence

Session Presentations and Speakers: Digital Twin Framework for the Digital Transformation of the Airworthiness Regulations in Response to Novel Engineering Practices in Advanced Air Mobility Daniel Pleffken and Christopher S. Cerqueira Pilots’ Perceptions of Artificial Intelligence and Their Impact on Flight Safety: An Extended Parallel Process Model Approach Dothang Truong SkyMate AI: A Companion System for Real-Time Diversion Readiness Carlos A. Vergas, Luis Vireilha, and Farshid Azadian The Applicability of Integrating AI Facial Recognition into Preflight Screening Process Yanbing Chen, Shuzhen Luo, and Brian Roggo

Vincent Varouh, Participant

Vincent Varouh currently supports the Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP) which is looking at the research and technology development needed to enable the future National Airspace System, including the safe and secure integration of Advanced Air Mobility concepts. He works with the four projects within the program: Air Mobility Pathfinders, System-Wide Safety, Air Traffic Management – eXploration, Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations, managing the technical work performed out of Glenn Research Center (GRC) which primarily focuses on aviation cybersecurity and communications research. This includes the development of strategic plans and research road maps in each of the technical areas, and the integration into the AOSP projects. He previously served as a systems security engineer, leading cybersecurity research efforts within NASA Aeronautics Research projects. Vincent also provided subject matter expertise to the mission directorate as a member of the Aeronautics Research Mission Cybersecurity Team. Prior to working in Aeronautics, he spent time as a cybersecurity operations lead, designing and implementing protection schemes for specialized labs and facilities utilized by the Research & Engineering Directorate at GRC. Vincent earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.https://commons.erau.edu/avcysecworkshop-bios-2025/1052/thumbnail.jp

Data Analytics: The Next Frontier in Aviation Safety

Session Presentations and Speakers Airline Overlays and System Resilience: Data-Driven Methods to Detect Single-Carrier Dependencies and Design Greedy Connectivity Peng Li, Aqi Dong, Lin Zhao, and Chunyan Yu Data-Driven Detection and Mitigation of GNSS Interference and Spoofing Risks in Global Aviation Operations Harrison Debrah Evaluating Large Language Models for Causal Analysis of NTSB Accident Narratives João Souza Dias Garcia, Pedro Haluch, Daniel Pleffken, and Leic D. Charles From Reactive to Predictive: Data-Driven Maintenance for Enhanced Aviation Safety Dustin Foot

Dr. Raja Sengupta, Participant

Raja Sengupta is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Sengupta’s research focuses on automated cars, drones, connected cars, smartphone apps for economics & transportation, wireless networking, and control theory. He likes to do research on the industry and get it into the marketplace, and he holds car-to-road networking patents with Toyota, a UAV patent with BAE Aerospace, and car-to-car networking contributions standardized by the SAE into J2945. Sengupta has been an advisor to the World Bank, is a recipient of the USDOT’s Connected Vehicle Technology award in 2011, the UC Berkeley Energy and Climate Lectures Innovation award in 2014, and has authored over a hundred papers spanning control theory, networking, drones, and transportation.https://commons.erau.edu/avcysecworkshop-bios-2025/1047/thumbnail.jp