Leveraging Expertise

The Army, the Department of Defense, and our nation often call upon our faculty to assist on complex projects. Our unique combination of experts in academic discipline combined with our multidisciplinary approach is an asset to many outside the walls of West Point. One effort West Point is particularly proud of is our work with the National Military Academy of Afghanistan (NMAA). You can learn more here about the NMAA.

Department of Systems Engineering’s Dr. John Farr and MAJ Brian Sawser travelled to Kabul, Afghanistan to provide a Decision Making Workshop to program managers within the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG) on 8-9 November. The US Army Corps of Engineers’ funded project enabled Dr. Farr and MAJ Sawser to engage future leaders of Afghanistan in a spirited two-day workshop that stressed the importance of value-focused thinking and life cycle costing within the decision making process. These Afghan program managers are tasked with assisting local Afghan districts in their efforts to increase economic development, promote good governance, and ensure security and stability. The two-day workshop provide to be an enriching experience for both instructor and student alike, as the class remained highly interactive and spirited throughout 16 hours of instruction. Dr. Farr and MAJ Sawser spent the remainder of their two weeks in Afghanistan developing future collaborations with various agencies and commands.

On 28 October 2010, three cadets from the Engineering Psychology program traveled to Aberdeen Proving Ground to collaborate with ARL researchers about an on-going project. The team is examining where to place bone conduction microphones on the head in order to optimize signal quality. Bone conduction microphones have tactical significance because they can transduce human voice communications without being severely impacted by background noise.

COL Ed Naessens on the Firing Line with Afghani T62 Tanks.  COL Naessens is deployed to General Petraeus' command: International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan. He is applying his expertise in education and curriculum development for the establishment of the National Military Academy of Afghanistan. His cadets performed admirably as they learned to operate T62 tanks and prepared to lead the Afghani Army. West Point has maintained a constant stream of faculty and staff to support the establishment of the NMAA.