DEPS Board of Directors

The Nominations Committee named the following six candidates for the three DEPS Director positions to be filled with this election. The slate emphasizes technical, organizational, and geographic diversity. Write-in candidates are also accepted.

Note that only DEPS members can vote and that member login is required;
see our Members Page for details on account information.

Voting will remain open until midnight on Friday, 13 March 2026.

Click on a name to expand the selection and learn more about the candidates.

Background: Dr. George Che is a Senior Research Engineer in the Antenna Systems Division of the Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory (SEAL-ASD) at GTRI. He is the Head of the System Characterization and Applications Branch and oversees a large research portfolio comprised of many efforts in HPM, EMC/EMI, and phased array antennas supporting a number of customers, including SMDC, AFRL, NRL, DOT&E, and others. HPM efforts constitute the largest portion of this portfolio and are heavily focused on modeling and simulation for HPM lethality, but also includes component and subsystem-level effects testing, independent assessment of compact sources, and T&E policy and guidance support. Dr. Che received the 2019 Triple Threat Award at GTRI, which recognizes exemplary performance in leadership, technical performance, and business development. He is also heavily involved in recruiting and mentoring student employees, serving as the SEAL Associate Student Coordinator from 2020-2022 and SEAL Student Coordinator from 2022-Present. His success in mentorship of both student employees and fulltime junior researchers was recognized by an Excellence in Mentoring award in 2022. Dr. Che earned a Bachelor's (2012) degree in Physics from Princeton University and Master's (2017) degree in Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. (2018) in Exploration Systems Design both from Arizona State University.

Candidate's Statement: The DoW has designated Scaled Directed Energy (SCADE) as one of the six Critical Technology Areas (CTAs) for national security. Now more than ever, maintaining and growing the talent pipeline for the DE workforce of today and tomorrow is crucial to developing innovative DE technologies and transitioning them to meet the dynamic warfighter needs in an increasingly dangerous world. As THE professional society for DE research and development and its operational transition to the battlefield, DEPS needs to be at the forefront of sustaining and growing a highly skilled DE workforce. If elected to the Board of Directors, I will dedicate myself to enhancing DEPS public outreach and educational programs, ensuring that students from high school up to PhD-level have greater visibility into the exciting opportunities within DE and its critical importance to national security. Furthermore, I will advocate for major DE centers of excellence a cross the services to create joint student internship/co-op programs, which would expose students to multiple technical topics, different work cultures, and mentorship by subject matter experts with a wide range of skillsets, thereby increasing their exposure the breadth of DE while also providing multiple organizations access to top talent. As the student hiring coordinator for the Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory (SEAL) at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), I have not only recruited, hired, and/or mentored over a hundred undergraduate and graduate student employees, but also successfully transitioned many of them to fulltime GTRI scientists and engineers working on DE, EW, radar, quantum technologies, and other defense-related applications. I am eager to apply this expertise to a role with national-level impact on ensuring the future strength of the DE workforce.

Background: Joined the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in 1987 performing research in HEL and HPM vulnerability effects and assessments important to the Air Force. Established the Systems Engineering and Analysis Branch which developed and analyzed DE concept issues from broad points of view relating to technology readiness, technology tradeoffs, mission effectiveness, military utility, and role in system architectures. Later served as Product Line Leader for Precision Engagement, and acting PM for AFRL's SAF special interest program - Electric Laser on a Large Aircraft (ELLA). Twice served as the DE Staff Specialist for OUSD(R&E), in this role assisted the Director for Weapons Systems in strategic planning, assessment, and defense/advocacy of DE Weapons Technology Areas. Served 8+ years as director of the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office (HEL JTO), later renamed to the Joint DE Transition Office (DE JTO). As director: delivered the first SBC HEL to SMDC (RELI program); completed the Joint Laser Deconfliction Safety System (JLDSS); initiated the Advanced Beam Control for Locating and Engaging (ABLE) program (advancing technology development in adaptive optics and tracking); documented a Beam Control Initiative in support of next-gen HEL (HELSI); initiated / proposed employment of modular open systems approach for HEL weapon systems; established a database of HEL / HPM vulnerability information; completed a five year project arrangement with the United Kingdom (UK) on the effects of HEL, and served on two NATO research task groups and a research lecture series, to name a few. Current Sr. technical advisor for AFRL's mission planning and integration division, providing corporate level recommendations, leadership, planning, to develop, integrate, and transition tactical HEL and beam control S&T. Completed a 2yr study indicating that a layered, integrated ABAD system utilizing a hybrid KE/DE approach would maximize effectiveness, minimize C2 bandwidth usage, and optimize cost. Served as the focal point for the DE directorate's NATO on-going activities, as well as chair for a NATO Research Lecture Series and Research Task Group.

Candidate's Statement: I have been working in the DE community for over 38 years and have been a member of DEPS since its inauguration. Over the years I have given technical presentations, plenary talks, and short courses and served multiple times as session and program chair at DEPS and SPIE conferences. As a DEPS Board of Directors (BoD) member, I served 3 years as the liaison to the Board of Scientific and Engineering Advisors (BSEA). The BSEA provides advice to the BoD regarding corporate policy and strategic direction and recommends "Fellow" candidates for selection and approval. The past 3 years have been quite turbulent for DEPS, we've had three Executive Directors, a turnover of DEPS office personnel, the recent furlough and loss of the facility clearance. I recently worked with DEPS to create an Educations Partnership Agreement between AFRL/RD and DEPS which provides a DD-254 necessary for DEPS to reestablish their facility clearance; facilitate classified discussions; conduct future classified meetings and publish classified documents. Despite recent set-backs, DEPS has been and continues to be the premier organization for attracting and providing a collaborative environment for directed energy professionals. I believe with the enthusiasm of the new Director and office personnel, DEPS will experience a period of resurgence.

Much like many technical professional societies, the membership continues to age, presenting an issue for our workforce and community in general. If re-elected as a DEPS board member, I will strive to help create an environment that encourages a pipeline to a younger and stronger membership base to help invigorate the organization. I see building new leadership opportunities for the newest members including providing mentorship in presenting new innovative presentations at events, enhancing publication opportunities in the JDE, and expanding the events with think-tank type sessions in order that the earlier career individuals have a place to voice their thoughts. I think it is important to re-build strong and relevant programs for students and early career Service and industry personnel. This means a strong mentoring program and focuses on educational workshops. I still think it is important to expand DEPS' international participation and membership as well as partnerships with other professional societies - I will strive to help the DEPS staff in this way. I also want to help identify important topics DEPS needs to bring awareness to and address, for example: issues concerning the industrial base, modular open system architecture, next-generation beam control technology development, a balanced basic / applied research vs advanced research / demonstrations, health of the small business community, a common repository of relevant data / documentation available to the whole DE community, to name a few.

Background: Dr. Mordaunt has over 25 years of experience in the development of technology and capabilities for High Energy Lasers and Directed Energy systems. He has worked on systems ranging from the first diode-pumped kilowatt laser (DAPKL) to the first 100kW diode-pumped laser, the Joint High Power Solid-State Laser (JHPSSL). Dr. Mordaunt has developed technology for many different solid-state laser architectures, including high power fibers, slab lasers, disk lasers, and rod-based lasers. His range of experience includes the development of beacon illuminators and track illuminators in support of laser weapon system operation. Dr. Mordaunt has managed multiple high power laser technology development and prototype programs to successful demonstration and delivery. His technology and program experience covers a wide range of high-power CW and pulsed laser systems. Related solid-state laser experience includes product development for illuminator lasers, sources for laser radar, target designators and rangefinders, and infrared countermeasure systems.

Dr. Mordaunt has been a member of DEPS since its inception and previously supported DEPS conferences as a program chair and program committee member. He has a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Southern California, MS from the University of Illinois and a BA from Whitman College. He has over 40 publications in technical journals and conference proceedings.

Candidate's Statement: As a charter member of DEPS, I have been involved with the society since its inception. DEPS has had some ups and downs (e.g., sequestration and Covid) but remains the premier forum for sharing information and networking for the Directed Energy community. I want to continue our tradition of strong meetings with outstanding system and technology information as well as providing a platform for members of the DE community to interact. In the past, DEPS has also held topical meetings on subjects such as advanced lasers or ultrashort pulse lasers. I support bringing back these types of meetings if supported by members' interest and allowed by society finances.

Support to education should be a key mission for DEPS. The provision of graduate and undergraduate scholarships is important to educating and grooming the next generation of DE scientists and engineers. Coordination of DE internships with Government and Industry organizations like AFIT, the NPS, and the service labs is another area where DEPS can have an impact on potential new members of the community. In the past, DEPS has supported educational outreach to Government and the Armed Services through events like the DE2DC exhibitions. I would like to see this activity continue. It is clear that DE is progressing beyond prototype systems and on the verge of fielding operational DE weapons. Ensuring that the benefits (and limitations) are known to key decision makers, including the Congressional DE Caucus, is a role that DEPS should support.

I also support collaboration with other professional societies like Optica or SPIE. The DE Test and Evaluation Conference is jointly supported by DEPS and ITEA, one example of successful collaboration between professional societies. For several years, I coordinated DEPS support to Optica's Laser Applications Conference in order to organize a Defense Applications session, which typically was the most widely attended session at the conference. This type of inter-society collaboration is another way to broaden DEPS' reach and educate more scientists and engineers on the capabilities of Directed Energy.

I believe that DEPS has a bright future and a key role to play in the transition of Directed Energy from the lab to the field. If I am offered the opportunity to serve on the DEPS Board, I will bring both enthusiasm and experience to the role.

Background: Joshua Peters is a business builder with 23 years in directed energy, aerospace and defense. As Director of DE at HII (2023-present), he led market entry including the Army EHEL prototype award, establishing strategy, technical roadmap, and customer relationships. He led DE system marinization, ship integration, and MOSA insertion studies.

At Booz Allen (2015-2023), Joshua conceived, launched, and scaled the company's DE product family from ideation to revenue-generating business with 30+ personnel and dedicated facilities. As Chief Technologist for DE, he identified market gaps, aligned multi-million dollar R&D investments, and established foundational patents. As Director, he led from first hire through prototype testing, field demos, and production capacity. He led classified assessments including MDA's HEL Boost Phase Intercept program.

At Rolls-Royce and LibertyWorks, Joshua demonstrated versatility from aerothermodynamic design on classified Air Force programs to production operations coordinating 4,500+ employees, resolving critical issues impacting deliveries and sustainment. He was Technical Lead on the USAF's flagship fighter engine program with multiple awards, recognized in the top 10% of Rolls-Royce's global High Potential Pool. As Chief of DE at LibertyWorks, he led market entry, providing power and cooling to field units that destroyed targets from tethered rockets to cruise missiles. Joshua holds a B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue (3.9 and 3.8 GPAs) and an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School (3.85 GPA, Fuqua Scholar). He has 30+ patents and 10 conference papers, and served on the DEPS/AIAA Airborne DE Committee as Subcommittee Lead, Vice Chair, and Chair.

Candidate's Statement: Directed energy stands at an inflection point - transitioning from laboratories to battlefield. This demands bridging the "valley of death" between R&D and production, scaling prototypes to programs of record.

My career has been defined by building businesses at exactly these interfaces. With a decade straddling the valley in nearly 2 million square feet of aerospace prototyping, production, and sustainment...plus a decade more in DE, I know what it takes for DE to bridge the transition gap. As a DEPS Board member, I will focus on three priorities:

Launch DEPS Transition Readiness Framework. Create assessment tools and best practices for evaluating DE capability, affordability, and maturity across manufacturing, supply chain, T&E, and operational employment - helping formative programs identify and address transition risks early.
Strengthen Transition Partnerships. Expand DEPS programming beyond technology to include acquisition strategies, manufacturing processes, supply chain maturity, T&E protocols, production engineering, sustainment, and lifecycle cost management - making DEPS the forum where labs, industry, and academia collaborate on complete solutions.
Develop DE Business Leaders. Champion professional development in commercialization, acquisition strategy, and program management through short courses, mentorship programs, and business-focused conference tracks.

With 14 years of DEPS engagement and 6 years leading the DEPS/AIAA Airborne DE Committee, I've organized sessions and presented on transition challenges. Now we must evolve to support the full lifecycle from concept to combat capability. Let's deliver.

Background: The following summary of professional experience, covering a 40-year span, which bridges government, academic and industrial experience summarizes a career which balances management, research, teaching, industrial work, and industrial consulting. Although the areas Dr. Rader has worked in are fundamentally different, the work has one thing in common: the demonstrated ability to build a successful program starting from very modest resources. Dr. Rader began his career at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville under the tutelage of Dr. Igor Alexeff, and through Igor an interesting cast of characters including Dr. David Abe.

Dr. Raders career has been very broad based, including training in hazardous materials, textiles, human forensics, plasma physics, and antenna theory, which will let him step into a leadership position quickly and assume either a high level management or technical role with ease. I have extensive contacts throughout government, and industry which let me be very effective in building inter-agency teams. Formerly, he manage multiple programs for both agencies within and outside of DOD. This has lead me to coordinate and managing personnel in 5 separate agencies as well as multiple performing contractors. I work with OSD and ASAALT to promote and transition these efforts into programs of record as the technology matures.

At NRL Dr. Rader built and tested several types of small explosive pulsed power systems and am presently researching the use of high rep rate pulsed power RF devices for CIDE and CUAS applications. has built and installed cyber security systems in police agencies, as well as authored papers on cyber security. He has built, programmed, and maintained large Beowulf simulation clusters for a major university as well as building and installing systems for the FBI DNA Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS).

At USASMDC he managed multiple, externally funded research efforts. These efforts include research into counter UAS and electronic RF effects, RF health and safety initiatives, and managed the design of two full scale outdoor RF weapons prototypes. He was awarded the US Army Distinguished Civil Service Medal in 2025 for this work.

Upon, retiring from the federal government, Dr. Rader went to work at PeopleTec Inc. in March of 2025. There he serves as Senior Science and Technical Advisor and is responsible for creating new research directions for the company as well as developing congressional appropriations language and performing liaison duties with universities worldwide. He presently has 11 patents in electronics, human genetics and identification, and finally plasma physics.

In addition to his paid career, Dr. Rader has done extensive volunteer work with the IEEE committees. He has sat on the IEEE NPSS Administrative Committee and the Executive Committee on Pulse Power.

Certifications

Trained hazardous material handler and emergency responder.
Certified DOD explosives facility manager.
Certified Firing Officer, Explosives Handler, and Certifying Official.
Acquisition Core level 3 SPRDE ? Program Systems Engineer

Candidate's Statement: Since I joined the federal government, I have been coming to DEPS fall and spring meetings, and I have observed a lot of highs and lows. DEPS by its very title, Directed Energy Professional Society, in many ways serves a very small exclusive audience. That must change for DEPS to be stable and start to grow. As it stands now DEPS dependent on the federal government's whims in order for it to survive, so in order to grow DEPS must figure out how to expand its base of support. In order to grow the support base 3 things need to happen: 1)We must expand our user base to include more academic institutions. 2) We need to re-invigorate the DEPS journal into something resembling a true peer-reviewed journal. 3) We need to establish some kind of award base, given out regularly, where deps can honor the work done by its members as well as a milestone those members can point back to in their career.

My plan would be to work with the DEPS board and career staff to develop a strategic growth plan to minimize the amount of federal funding required to keep DEPS operational. This would include focusing on steps 1 and 2 as outlined above. Additionally, I would push the DEPS board to explore affiliate membership in the IEEE and other more well known societies which have memberships on college campuses nationwide, as well as set up membership booths at the relevant conventions for those societies, because the first exposure to DEPS cannot continue to be when a person goes to work in a directed energy weapons laboratory.

Background: Dr. Craig A Robin is the Chief Executive Officer and owner of EO Solutions. Founded in 2022, EO Solutions is a physics and engineering company with technical and programmatic expertise in providing emerging technology solutions for multi-domain warfighting capability gaps.

Prior to starting EO Solutions, Dr. Robin was appointed as a Senior Leader (SL) in March 2020, and served as the Director of the Directed Energy Project Office within the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), Redstone Arsenal, Al. In that position, Dr. Robin was responsible for oversight and execution of research, development, prototyping, test, evaluation, procurement and fielding directed energy technologies and capabilities that address immediate, near-term, and mid-term threats, consistent with the Army's modernization priorities.

Dr. Craig A. Robin was appointed as a Senior Scientific Professional (ST) in August 2017, and served as Senior Research Scientist (Directed Energy Applications), Technical Center, United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command/ Army Forces Strategic Command. In this role, Dr. Robin was responsible for the overview, execution, and coordination of programs in basic research, exploratory development, advanced development, and system integration in the technological and functional areas of directed energy weapons necessary to advance the pioneering development of revolutionary military systems and equipment.

Dr. Robin previously worked with Lockheed Martin Laser and Sensor Systems in Bothell, Washington as a Research Scientist from October of 2013 to August of 2017. P rior to that, Dr. Robin spent 10 years, from 2003 to 2013, as a Research Physicist and graduate student with the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Dr. Robin holds a bachelor's degree in Physics from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon; a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Robin holds the faculty title of Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico. He is a member of the Directed Energy Professional Society, the Optical Society of America, the International Society for Optics and Photonics, and the Association of the United States Army.

Candidate's Statement: My professional life began within the DEPS community and evolved with the changes we've seen over the past 20 years. I started as a research scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory working on basic and applied research efforts in high energy lasers. I took the knowledge I gained there and transitioned to the defense industry where I could be part of a team focused on maturing DE technology into products for demonstration. I left industry and went back to the government at an executive leadership level to help shape DE technology for transition to the Warfighter. My time in the government coincided with a major shift in the National Defense Strategy from an emphasis on counterterrorism to Near-Peer competition. This new direction gave rise to three focus areas for emerging technology:

Rapid prototyping with military utility
Organize for innovation
Stress affordability

DE technology is poised to be a solution for many Warfighter capability gaps enabled by the work of this community, but we're not there yet. I left the government and started a company because I see the need for industry to respond to this new directive.

Our world is expanding. We are no longer in a "technology push" environment. Emerging technologies like Directed Energy are being pulled to the forefront to solve national defense challenges, and our community must respond in kind. I have a unique combination of experience in industry and government that informs this discussion and would be honored to be part of the team that helps guide DEPS into the future.