Led sponsored & individual research primarily in the fields of aerospace engineering, computer science (artificial intelligence & interactive computing), & operations research. Led in service to the institute through chairing EMERGE@GTRI (GTRI’s employee resource group for emerging professionals), volunteering with local K-12 STEM programs (via Science ATL), and seeking out opportunities for cross-functional research collaboration.

Sponsored work focused on adapting academic expertise and enterprise commercial best practices to improve operations for the U.S. military. Individual research branched into more innovative technology and its possible applications to improve aircraft maintenance.

• Led sponsored projects for U.S. Air Force to help them adapt commercial aviation & enterprise IT best practices: leveraging the data available to them to make better decisions, better structure data using Natural Language Processing (NLP), implementing process improvements, prototyping new software to support & expedite revised processes, etc.

• Led Individual Research and Development (IRAD) projects focused on classifying aircraft maintenance data with a Large Language Model (LLM), and using computer vision & artificial intelligence to recognize, label, and surface information about aircraft components

Managed professional services engagements with wide-ranging scopes, keeping resources engaged, happy, & productive, and ensuring customers were satisfied with results. Assisted the team with standardization & other ways to improve scalability of mid-market consulting operation. Helped start & led PRIDE@MSTR to promote inclusion & foster a positive workplace for all.

• Led projects & support engagements which generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue

• Designed user experiences & solutions to meet customer needs: conducting user interviews to redesign dashboards & reporting portals, optimizing infrastructure to reduce latency, etc.

• Led & performed Design Advisories & Application Modernizations to help customers re-imagine their reports, showcase the newest analytical capabilities of MicroStrategy, & move customers onto the modern software stack

• Ran pilot programs for customers to vet usage of the MCE (MicroStrategy Cloud Environment, hosted on AWS or Azure) before helping customers migrate from existing on-prem implementations

Headed the development of the organization’s Business Intelligence Strategy with funding provided by the Digital Transformation Program. Recognized as Primary Operations Data Subject Matter Expert (SME) and took product ownership of the new Operations Data Lake. Pinpointed and prioritized over 50 data sources to be replicated into the lake for analytical use. Led the determination and implementation of IT architecture, data & resourcing requirements, and inducted several project managers and over 50 team members to progress the program. Integrated data from newly built Single View of the Customer (SVOC) system into operational toolsets.

• Spearheaded and supported the delivery of operational, analytical toolsets encompassing Cancellation Prioritization (minimizing customer impact), Gate Utilization (reducing tarmac delays), Weather Impact Tools, IROP (Irregular Operations) Replay & Simulation tools (utilized for debriefs and training) and other valuable tools leveraged by frontline and back-office employees, that boosted operational efficiency and improved customer experience.

• Achieved powerful insight into data sources created by and/or harnessed at Delta and in the aviation sector and furthered knowledge of data management & integration practices, modern data replication methodologies and IT architecture.

Acting as the trusted primary operations data Subject Matter Expert (SME) at Delta, provided advice on operational data and analytics. Headed research into the organization’s customer and operational data sources plus industry data sources including from FlightAware, FAA and The Weather Company. Improved communication and collaborative working between the Business Intelligence team and all Operational divisions under the Chief Operations Officer inclusive of Delta Connection, Delta Private Jets and Delta Global Services. Headed the introduction of analytics and reporting capabilities that monitored Joint Venture Partners’ operational performance, by liaising with and collating data from JV partners. Drove the innovation and presentation of several application concepts for advanced analytics on complex, large-scale and unstructured datasets to improve AC reliability and enhance operational standards. This encompassed advanced weather analytics, predictive maintenance plus other solutions that were later integrated into the Operations Digital Transformation Program.

• Led and later supported the utilization of analytics and reporting within the IT division, including a migration to use the more advanced service management tool ServiceNow, directly contributing to a reduction in IT incidents.

• Enabled the enhancement of customer service by revamping the airline’s Customer Survey program, collaborating with a vendor and other IT groups to redesign survey invitation, data harvesting and storage processes.

• Gained significantly better feedback from business customers enabling additional value to the organization by correctly prioritizing strategic projects, continuously improving Business as Usual (BAU) support and the introduction of improved analytical tool and data training for users.

• Committed to achieving the best possible results for each project, advocated for an agile project delivery approach, which, when adopted, proved exceptionally beneficial to Business as Usual (BAU) operations.

• Led efforts to migrate a substantial number of production-ready datasets from user-owned “sandbox” database environments to the IT-supported production environment.

Charged with the creation of a large, multi-year Business Intelligence (BI) strategy encompassing all 9 operating divisions and 2 wholly owned subsidiaries, supported by a director and VP only. Leveraged strong communication, active listening, and exceptional interpersonal skills, to liaise with each division and their IT Portfolio, including core IT portfolios to gain maximum insight from colleagues. Gained an appreciation of the organization’s requirements on a micro and macro scale and a comprehensive understanding of problems encountered.

Formulated a strategy that met the expectations of, and gained buy-in from, core IT Enterprise Architects, Business Intelligence Consultants, and other business units, including Revenue & Network Planning, Finance and HR. Presented proposal to the CEO and COO covering suggested improvements in data sourcing & Business Intelligence tools, resolved identified issues, and laid out data development roadmaps for the entire organization which evolved into the Digital Transformation program.

Appointed by senior leadership to oversee resource planning, process analysis and improvement, plus the creation of new metrics and technology to support assignments. While in this role, my responsibilities evolved several times.

Monitored and tracked scheduled and unscheduled engine removals plus spare allocations for 15 different engine types across the fleet.

• Automated a considerable amount of Engine Planning’s data capture and analysis, streamlining processes and building superior insights into engine efficiency.

Following an unprecedented number of Maintenance Cancellations during Summer 2010, tasked with pioneering an approach to harvest and track “Aircraft Health” metrics to evaluate the health of Delta’s fleet.

• Successfully formulated automated processes to capture, monitor and analyze data. Decisions made based on this data and our analyses resulted in the halving of maintenance cancellations, year-on-year, from 5,700 in 2010 to less than 500 in 2014.

Entrusted with the improvement of operational efficiency and performance across the department, directed the initiative to introduce mobile-accessible, web-based reporting and divisional dashboards at TechOps.  Bolstered collaboration with Delta’s Business Intelligence team, assumed product ownership of TechOps IT projects for the division and gained & disseminated further knowledge of analytical tools including Teradata database technology, Tableau, SAS, and Cognos.

• Devised, and sustained, maintenance and logistics performance reporting, collected and stored data to facilitate TechOps analytical requirements.