David Van Wie to Lead APL’s Air and Missile Defense Sector

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, Maryland, has tapped David Van Wie to head its Air and Missile Defense Sector, where he will oversee all work related to an APL mission that traces its roots to the Laboratory’s founding project: the radio proximity fuze.

During his 35-year APL career, he has served in a succession of leadership roles with increasing responsibility, most recently as the mission area executive for APL’s Precision Strike Mission Area. Under his leadership, that mission area significantly increased its impact in advanced weapon development, electromagnetic spectrum dominance, and novel long-range detection and targeting systems through the revolutionary application of technologies in the areas of hypersonics, adaptive coordination of discrete kinetic and non-kinetic systems, and upstream data fusion.

Van Wie has played key roles on major studies conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, and the Defense Science Board. His research covered a variety of topics, including conventional prompt global strike, boost-phase missile defense, defense against cruise and ballistic missiles, unconstrained warfare and hypersonics.

Van Wie is one of the nation’s foremost experts in hypersonics. He has published more than 140 papers on high-temperature fluid dynamics, plasma aerodynamics and hypersonic air breathing propulsion systems. He holds a research faculty position in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University’s G. W. C. Whiting School of Engineering and has lectured extensively in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland on space propulsion, aerodynamics and high-temperature gas dynamics.

Van Wie’s national-level recognition includes election to the National Academy of Engineering, election as a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Air Force Award for Meritorious Civilian Service. He holds bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland, as well as a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University.

The Air and Missile Defense Sector’s mission is to advance the ability of our nation to defend itself and others against cruise and ballistic missiles and threat aircraft.