YEAR IN REVIEW | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2014

ADVANCING THE SECRETARY'S GOALS

The Naval Postgraduate School is in the unique position to advance the skill sets of officers throughout the Navy, Marine Corps, and across the Armed Services – and every one of these students has been chosen to lead, and will return to the fleet and force to lead.

When Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus detailed his energy independence goals, a pillar of their success rested on a change in culture across the sea services. In late October 2014, the man charged with making the Secretary’s vision a reality, Assistant Secretary of the Navy – Energy, Installations & Environment retired Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, spent a couple of days at NPS to see first hand the work that students and faculty are doing to answer Mabus’ call to transform the service’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“I want to say unequivocally that the Naval Postgraduate School is a national asset,” said McGinn. “I think NPS has the waterfront covered with our energy portfolio.”

Indeed NPS does have the energy front covered … multiple degree programs across disciplines with a dedicated focus on energy; a broad spectrum of advanced, applied research projects in materials sciences, biofuels, optimization and efficiency studies, and many more; and, a bi-weekly Defense Energy Lecture series, where the nation’s brightest minds in energy relevant fields present their efforts to university students in the varied energy curricula.

The bottom line, energy has already become culture at NPS, and the institution stands ready to lead the service in bringing that culture to the fleet. Through the education of its students, and the continued advanced research underway across campus, it isn’t a question of if the Navy’s culture will change, it is merely a question of when.

Lt. Will Curtin, a student in the mechanical engineering program, demonstrates the creation of a carbon nanofiber foam in the NPS Functional Materials Laboratory September 2014. The advanced nanostructure has broad military and civilian applications.

Oceanography students deploy several sensor stations in an effort to gather data about the tidal zone at nearby Del Monte Beach, Oct. 6, 2014. Field work is an integral component to many graduate studies, but is not limited to just the oceanography department at NPS.

Operations research alumnus, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Adm. Michael G. Mullen is officially appointed to the National Academy of Engineering, the premier scientific advisory body to the U.S. Congress.

Researchers with NPS’ Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely-Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) are pictured inside their hangar in nearby Marina. CIRPAS operates manned and unmanned research aircraft in support of the military and science communities.