Document is current

Article History

Received: 7 July 2018

Accepted: 20 February 2019

First Online: 27 April 2019

Authors’ information

: <b>Daniel A. O’Neil</b> works in the Office of Strategy within the Office of Strategic Analysis and Communication at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He develops software prototypes to demonstrate the applications of various technologies to strategic analysis, such as interactive text based scenarios, social network analysis, and 3D orbital trajectory visualization web-apps. Additionally, he integrates Microsoft SharePoint data lists via Nintex workflows. During his career spanning three decades, his employers included the Boeing Company, the U.S. Army Strategic Defense Command, and NASA. His experience includes development of real-time code for the B1-B flight training simulator, management of the development of one of the first web-based intranets, management of the development of a system-of-systems life cycle technology portfolio analysis system, and authorship of tutorials and associates demonstration code for ontology driven orbital dynamics visualization web-apps. He received a B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1985 and an M.S. degree in Engineering Management in 1997 from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Modeling and Simulation at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.<b>Mikel D. Petty</b> is currently Senior Scientist for Modeling and Simulation in the Information Technology and Systems Center and an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Prior to joining UAH, he was Chief Scientist at Old Dominion University’s Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center and Assistant Director at the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Simulation and Training. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida in 1997. Dr. Petty has worked in modeling and simulation research and education since 1990 in areas that include verification and validation methods, simulation interoperability and composability, and human behavior modeling. He has published over 215 research papers and has been awarded over $16.5 million in research funding. He has served on both National Research Council and National Science Foundation committees on modeling and simulation, is a Certified Modeling and Simulation Professional, and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal <i>SIMULATION: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International</i>. He has been dissertation advisor to eight graduated Ph.D. students in four different academic disciplines (Computer Science, Modeling and Simulation, Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Computer Engineering).

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.