CRANE, Ind. –
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) hosted National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) X-Force Fellows throughout the summer to gain hands on experience in their fields. Once the fellowship was completed, the interns were able to present their projects to their peers and the employees of NSWC Crane.
April White, manager for NSWC Crane’s Radiation Test and Evaluation Branch, sponsored a group of interns to develop a radiation-scheduling tool. This tool would help streamline radiation facility schedules and allow those with access to view upcoming radiation testing events at internal and external facilities.
“As we expand our radiation footprint and capability with the acquirement of additional radiation systems, there is a demand to have a tool of this nature that is developed internally for better scheduling efficiency. This tool will create a one stop shop for radiation testing here at NSWC Crane,” said White.
Since White’s students spent most of their fellowship working on the project remotely, she decided to bring them to NSWC Crane during the early stages of their assignment to help them better understand what they would be supporting.
“A lot of students have never heard of NSWC Crane before so bringing them onsite for a couple of days to show them the facilities and to see how the tool would be utilized gave them an understanding of the work that they would be doing.”
After their initial visit, White’s interns were able to jump right into their project. By the time they completed their fellowship, they were able to provide a prototype and documentation to transfer to the programmers at NSWC Crane for them to continue to develop in-house.
“Our interns were extremely knowledgeable in various computer programing languages, they were go-getters, they worked well together, and were well spoken,” said White. “There was no hand holding throughout the project; they just took the information that was given to them and ran with it.”
Another project developed through the X-Force Fellowship was a webscraping tool to help identify news, misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (mis/dis/mal-information).
Scott Williams and Gino Kler participated in the NSIN X-Force Fellowship and together developed a webscraping tool called Scan for Trending Adverse Messages Program (STAMP). The purpose of this tool was to track news and help identify mis/dis/mal-information that can be found online about NSWC Crane.
Their first challenge included trying to determine what online content they could use for their tool because, as Williams stated, “scraping that’s legal for research and development or for personal use is different.”
Williams and Kler were able to come up with a tool that used artificial intelligence and machine learning to determine text from various online platforms based on three things—its relevance to NSWC Crane, whether the post is positive or negative, and how close the writing style is to what is often found in fake news. This tool also used a learning algorithm for forensic imagery to determine if the image is fake or not. The STAMP tool can easily be accessed through a desktop app which provides easy access to its users.
“With our tool, you can easily track adverse sentiment and catch potential conspiracies or other inflammatory rhetoric relevant to the group before it gets out of hand. Our app's framework can be relatively easily modified to monitor online content pertaining to any government agency, not just NSWC Crane,” said Kler.
From her experience as a sponsor, White would highly recommend this fellowship to other managers.
“This program is something that is extremely beneficial to have at our disposal. By providing this experience to interns, they are learning more about the work being done here at NSWC Crane and it sparks an excitement and interest in that work and the work being done throughout the Department of Defense (DoD).”
Both Williams and Kler enjoyed their time as X-Force Fellows and would recommend the program to any students looking for a career within the DOD.
“My experience was fantastic! I highly recommend NSIN, X-Force, Crane, and all the people who made it great. The program taught us a lot about careers in national security,” said Williams.
Kler is appreciative that he was able to get everything that he could out of this fellowship and that it provided connections that he would not necessarily find elsewhere.
“Overall, I had a fantastic experience. I couldn't have asked for a better team to work with. I really appreciate the connections I made with them as well as with other important folks in the DOD. I'm especially thankful that I was able to get so much out of the fellowship, even though I was in a remote
setting. I would absolutely recommend the program to any students that want exposure to DOD work, especially research-oriented roles,” said Kler.
About NSWC Crane | NSWC Crane is a naval laboratory and a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) with mission areas in Expeditionary Warfare, Strategic Missions and Electromagnetic Warfare. The warfare center is responsible for multi-domain, multi- spectral, full life cycle support of technologies and systems enhancing capability to today's Warfighter.