Ohio State & MMEC Midwest Infrared Semiconductor Technology (MIST) Workshop

I Love the Smell of Infrared in the Morning

Lessons from a Career in EO/IR Sensors and Systems

Bio: RTX Principal Fellow and Tech Director - Currently supporting RVS Tactical Products including major POR efforts and pursuits. Responsible for technical strategy and roadmaps for the Tactical portfolio. Relevant projects spanning the full electromagnetic spectrum and major DoD agencies, including significant IR detector programs like EODAS, 3GEN FLIR, which are critical to U.S. national security. Former Director of RVS Engineering, leading a team of several hundred in executing technical, financial, and organizational goals. Member of several industry technology groups including MSS Passive Sensors, and IRCM, SPIE Infrared Technology and Systems Design Committees, as well as an appointment to the National Academy of Science. Background includes a broad variety of infrared detector and systems technology including extensive experience with related analysis tools. Winner of 2024 SPIE Book Award for “Introduction to Infrared and EO Systems”.

The Army’s Vision for Vision: The Role of EOIR Sensing in the US Army

Dr. Jason G. Zeibel is the Army’s Senior Research Scientist for Electro-Optics and works at the US Army C5ISR Center in Ft. Belvoir, VA. He holds a Bachelors in Mathematics from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Atomic Physics from the University of Virginia. Dr. Zeibel's expertise extends across a wide range of EOIR technologies including thermal imaging, Si:CMOS, III-V, and II-VI photodetectors, spectral sensing, readout integrated circuits, photonics, & neuromorphic sensors. He serves as a trusted advisor to senior Department of Defense officials and represents the U.S. Army in vital national and international collaborations. He chairs the OSW Sensors & Processing Community of Interest, is the US voting member on the NATO Sensing Technology (SET) Panel, and is the Army’s EOIR Core Competency lead. Dr. Zeibel has a prolific publication record with over 80 publications and two patents and is a fellow of the Military Sensing Symposium.

Resilient Sensing: How to Always See in a Maritime Environment

Beyond Vision: From Semiconductor Physics to Artificial Perception

Bio: Dr. Tony Ragucci is a Teledyne Fellow and Senior Director of Strategy at Teledyne Scientific & Imaging, where he drives enterprise-wide sensing and perception growth. He previously founded and led the Leonardo DRS Research, Advanced Prototyping, and Innovative Design (RAPID) Laboratory, and served as Raytheon Vision Systems’ Chief Engineer for the F-35 EO-DAS sensor. He earlier founded Pericept, which delivered the quantitative photogrammetric solutions later acquired by Topcon, and served as CTO of Lynntech, where his infrared georeferenced search technology earned an SBA Tibbetts Award. Over 22 years, Dr. Ragucci has advanced EO/IR sensing from materials physics through system integration, pairing technical leadership with business execution to deliver results in infrared imaging, sensor fusion, and embedded perception systems. He holds a B.S. in Physics, Mathematics, and Philosophy from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Physics from Penn State, and a Ph.D. in Physics from The Ohio State University.

Detector Material, ROIC, & FPA Development/Qualification for National Security Space Applications

Dr. Vince Cowan is a Principal Electronics Engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirtland AFB, NM. Dr. Cowan is the government lead for the United States Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate’s Infrared Radiation Effects Laboratory (IRREL) which works very closely with many other US Government Agencies supporting National Security Space (NSS) Electro-Optic (E/O) Imaging missions. The IRREL employees around a dozen researchers and is responsible for the development, radiometric and radiation tolerance characterization, and flight qualification of visible to long-wave detector materials, Read-Out Integrated Circuits (ROICs), and Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) to be used in launch detection and other E/O imaging applications. Dr. Cowan earned a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering and has authored and co-authored over 70 refereed and conference publications in the field of visible to longwave infrared detectors. Dr. Cowan is a Fellow of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) and a Fellow of the Military Sensing Symposia (MSS). Dr. Cowan started his career in 2006 at the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing Directorate located at Wright Patterson AFB where he characterized the nonlinear optical properties of semiconductors. The underlying technology that was produced has transition to many airborne and NSS Electro-Optic (E/O) sensors enabling drastically increased laser resiliency to adversary and blue on blue threats. In 2009 Dr. Cowan joined the Air Force Research Laboratories Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base where he ultimately became the lead for the Advanced Electro-Optics Space Sensor program that specializes in detector material, ROIC, and FPA R&D. Dr. Cowan works extremely closely with other DoD and broader IC NSS agencies and has defined and successfully executed multi-year R&D contracts with industry that have developed and transitioned over 21 FPAs to $24B of operational systems. Dr. Cowan’s team has solved multiple on-orbit anomalies (natural space and adversary induced) for systems program offices across the US Government bringing compromised systems back online.

Introduction to Infrared Systems: Long Range Targeting, Pilotage, and Threat Warning

Bio: Ronald G. Driggers is the Shannon Endowed Professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Optical Sciences and works in the areas of electro-optical and infrared imaging systems. Previously, he was appointed to the Senior Executive Service as the Superintendent of the Optical Sciences Division at the Naval Research Laboratory in 2008. There, he managed the efforts of more than 200 scientists and engineers and over $100M in research and development programs. Before 2008, he was the Director of the Modeling and Simulation Division at the U.S. Army’s Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD) and a brief period as the Chief of the Electro-Optics and Photonics Division at the Army Research Laboratory. Dr. Driggers is the author of seven books on Infrared and Electro-Optics Systems and has published over 200 research papers. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering (Taylor and Francis). He was selected as the 2002 Army Materiel Command’s Engineer of the Year, 2001 CERDEC Technical Employee of the Year, and 2001 NVESD Technical Employee of the Year. He was a U.S. Naval Reserve Officer and was selected as the 2001 Naval Engineering Duty Officer of the Year (William Kastner Award). He is also a Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering, the Optical Society of America, and the Military Sensing Symposium. He was the Editor-in-Chief of SPIE’s flagship journal, Optical Engineering from 2010-2015 and the Editor-in-Chief of the Optical Society of America’s journal Applied Optics from 2015-2021. He was also winner of the Joseph Goodman Bookwriting Medal in 2024.