NEWPORT, R.I. –
Marcus W. Davis, principal for safety/weapons system safety program integrator, in the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport Ranges, Engineering and Analysis Department, and Michael D. Jones, lead system safety engineer in the Undersea Warfare (USW) Platform and Payload Integration Department, both recently won an International System Safety Society (ISSS) award.
Davis, a resident of Warwick, Rhode Island, who works in the Platform System Safety, Reliability and Integrated Logistics Support Branch, won an ISSS Engineer of the Year Award, which honors an individual who has made significant contributions to system safety through the development of engineering methods, standards, or designs that have improved the safety of operation or use of systems of products.
Davis is the principal for safety for the Virginia-class platform in support of Naval Sea Systems Command’s (NAVSEA) PMS 450. He is responsible for tracking hazards throughout the lifecycle for the Virginia-class submarines, recommending hazard mitigations and maintaining an understanding of mishap risks in order to report to the technical authorities at the highest level. He is a core member of various integrated product teams and risk review boards, providing safety overview and guidance, including interacting with the fleet, developers and the ship builders to identify gaps in safety, identifying potential hazards and providing mitigation strategies. Davis has also served as a board member on the Weapon Systems Explosive Safety Review Board, an independent technical panel responsible for overseeing naval weapon safety since 2021.
Davis provided ship-specific safety recommendations in support of certification and safety approval for recent key events, such as fast cruise, sea trials, the inspection and survey process, and unrestricted operations, the award states.
“These efforts required Davis to utilize his exceptional technical expertise and communication skills to explain the applicable risks for each platform and coordinate the mitigations among the ship builder and all application developers across numerous NAVSEA, Naval Air Systems Command, and Integrated Warfare Systems Program Offices,” the award states. “His extraordinary effort helped to ensure the readiness of the submarines to support their mission requirements.”
Davis is also a key contributor and instructor for the NUWC University System Safety Overview course and is also a NUWC point of contact for the Warfare Center System Safety Enterprise Community of Interest group.
Jones, a former resident of Islip, New York, won an ISSS Scientific Achievement Award, which honors an individual that has made significant contributions to the advancement of system safety through research and development programs.
Jones works in the Systems Engineering Branch as a lead system safety engineer for design and development of novel passive propagation resistant (PPR) lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and as a technical project lead for development of novel host-agnostic latent internal short circuit detection technology.
Within the past year, Jones served as the lead system safety engineer for design and development of novel PPR Li-ion batteries, integration of PPR Li-ion batteries with unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs), and integration of PPR Li-ion powered UUVs with U.S. submarine platforms. As lead system safety engineer, Jones was embedded in the design and development team and was responsible for informing system design via system safety and reliability analysis conclusions.
“His actions resulted in the tailoring of a standard practice specific to the novel and emerging technology discipline of Li-ion batteries in safety-critical U.S. Navy environments, based on technical rigor and design-based mitigation, coupled with iterative and prescriptive system safety analysis,” the award states.
Jones earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Connecticut in 2020 and is pursuing a doctorate degree in chemical engineering at the University of Rhode Island as part of NUWC Division Newport’s Part-Time Academic Degree Training Program. His research in solid-state lithium-ion battery design is being sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and supports the National Institute of Undersea Vehicle Technology, a research collaboration between government, industry, and academia.
“The program has given me the opportunity to combine scientific curiosity with engineering application,” Jones said. “At school, I work from the nanoparticle to the single Lithium-ion cell. At NUWC, I work from the single Lithium-ion cell, to battery system, to integrated vehicles onboard U.S. submarines. This mix allows me to see the full scope of Lithium-ion battery development, while living simultaneously in the presence of real-world application, and the future of next-generation design.”
Both engineers received their awards at the ISSS annual summit and training event held on Aug. 28 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the country, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains major detachments in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as well as test facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher's Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.
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