Objective
Design future ships and boats for human mission spaces and living quarters
Experience
August 2002-February 2005 Mission Specialist, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Washington, DC (WTO)
Human Systems Integration Developer and Implementation engineer for Ship Mission Center of Navy Future Destroyer. IPT lead for Human Systems Integration Navy Directorate for providing human systems integration solutions to complex technical design of future destroyer and specific ship mission center, communications products and aircraft operations. Deriving requirements from Navy Operations Requirement Document (ORD) into engineering A specification and total ship implementation for human factors products to replace legacy systems and provide automated systems to replace personnel.
Test engineering conducting analysis of multi-sensory computer consoles and communications equipment for shipboard, AEGIS, anti-air, anti-ground, anti-undersea ship, boat and aircraft operations for replacement of Legacy Navy Call for Fire systems (NFCS). Developed and analyzed naval architecture redesign engineering proposals and related technical data to determine feasibility of assigning new equipment or modifying existing equipment on future Naval ships. Provided operations research analysis of compiled operational data from Naval database and communications sources in order to preparing program management overview application information. Member of design team providing habitability and system performance and industrial solutions in development of physics characteristics models for future combat systems.
Manager of 60 engineering/experimental psychology specialists as manager of the Navy Future Destroyer (DDG1000) Sailor/Quality of Life System Design Integrated Product Team (IPT) under the authority of the Human Systems Integration Cross Product Team (CPT). This production engineering team is the design prime human systems integration (HSI) contractor to the Navy for task analysis, human models and risk mitigation to implement new technology, course of action and execution and responsibility for the manning concept, validation of the manning required for total ship and Ship (command) Mission Center (SMC) design. The analyses characterize the SMC and validate it as a system. The DDG-1000- sailor system is comprised of the total ship crew defined in the DDG-1000 manning concept and the quality of life aspects of system design, which determine the sailor spaces. Providing significant value added consultant engineering for AEGIS future Cruiser program CGX and manning engineering for Deepwater and Integrated Coast Guard future Shore Assault cutters and cruisers. Engineering milestones which existed in the Manning integrated product team incurred mandatory development of design requirements developed in coordination with engineering Total Ship System Engineering design details. This product team created and maintained the evolving databases necessary to maintain a sailor profile for each crewmember, including ship workload, Operational manning (OM) Own Unit Support (OUS) Facilities Maintenance (FM), corrective and planned maintenance (CM) (PM), Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) and Shore Manning allocations. The Product Team Manager and production integrated with Navy training centers for billets using knowledge, skills, and abilities databases to model mission scenarios and substantiate data for functional allocation from knowledge engineering and decision task models, representative of the sailor design data being validated in a total crew and workload task model.
Subsequent to the above, the Production team at Shipyard in the Detailed Design Phase in Pascagoula, Mississippi Shipyard, and Dr. DiDonato was named Team Manager, Flight 1, DDG-1000 Human Systems Engineering Ship Segment Management Organization and was responsible for the analysis, evaluation and implementation of the physics and mathematical modeling tasks of Northrop Grumman Newport News (NGNN) for the Integrated Power System, the power plant of the DDG-1000, for prototype and test of the end–to-end power system model at the Philadelphia Shipyard. These models formed the basis for estimates of power and physics design characteristics for the entrance criteria to the Land Based Test Site ship configuration. Technical lead and program management responsibility for the IPS Verification, Validation and Accreditation (VV&A) test procedures, compliance documentation and all Navy deliverables.
Education
Candidate: MS/Ph.D. Industrial Systems Engineering/HF, Virginia Polytechnic, 2008
Ph. D. Management Information Systems, LaSalle Extension University
J. D. Maritime Law, Northern VA Law School
M. A. Communications, Villanova University
B. A. Liberal Arts/Science, Rutgers
Certification
DITSCAP
Skils
Human systems integration, software embedded GUI and GUI design, modeling and simulation, test engineering
Prefer Philadelphia Shipyard