In this article, The AFIT Foundation is recognizing Captain Ashwin Rao, PhD, a Physicist and Program Manager at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Captain Rao received his MS in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology in 2020 and went on to complete his PhD in 2022 in Nuclear Engineering. He joined the military after being offered an AFROTC scholarship in high school. He knew the Air Force had a scientist career field, so he decided to join and see where the opportunity would take him. Captain Rao is now the Deputy Lead for a reentry testbed program in the Space Vehicles Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory. He co-manages a $60M program effort to stand up an industry enabled, high cadence reentry testbed for hypersonic experimentation and technology maturation. Additionally, he is the principal investigator for a $2M basic and applied research portfolio. He investigates optical emission spectroscopy of plasmas for hypersonic sensing and nuclear safeguards applications. He also guides the development of novel sensing technologies though SBIR-funded projects with industry partners.

Captain Rao finished his PhD as a very young officer, defending his dissertation when he was a 1st Lt. Subsequently, he faced the challenge of leading science and technology efforts without prior assignment experience upon arriving at AFRL. Having his PhD, research expertise in spectroscopy, and several publications under his belt helped him leverage his knowledge to stand up new research endeavors supported by his peers. He was quickly able to secure basic research grant funding and build a new experimental research capability for his branch as a direct result of his experiences from being at AFIT. The established research background and technical abilities gained from his graduate education gave Captain Rao the credibility he needed to succeed as an early career S&E and start leading his own scientific investigations tied to his branch’s mission.

No alternative text description for this image, PictureA favorite memory Captain Rao has from his time at AFIT was the Crater Crawl he did with LTC Christina Dugan, PhD, and MAJ Chris Sutphin while in his last year of his PhD. They went to the Nevada National Security Site and took measurements of debris at various sites from Cold War era weapons tests with teams from the 20th CBRNE Command. It was the first time he got to apply the methods he was using for his dissertation research in a practical military environment and bridge the gap between academic research and operational capability.

Captain Rao advises those who are considering entering the military to take every opportunity to advance their education or learn something new that will help broaden their expertise. He writes, “Being a military S&E officer is a challenging but fulfilling role. If you are driven towards advancing technology and ready to be a lifelong learner, it is a great pathway to lead cutting edge defense research in the national interest.” Thank you, Captain Rao!