03.05.2026 –
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division (NSWCPD) opened National Engineers Week Feb. 22 – 28, 2026 with a reminder that engineering is not an abstract discipline, but a mission-driven profession shaped by constant questioning and continuous transformation.
Despite a snowstorm that prompted its February 24 kickoff event to go virtual, leaders from across the command and the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Warfare Centers Enterprise emphasized the enduring responsibility engineers have to support the warfighter. Citing this year’s theme, “Transform Your Future,” NSWCPD’s Acting Chief Technology Officer and kickoff emcee, Dr. Stephen Mastro, framed the week as more than a celebration of career paths. It was, he said, a reflection on the profession itself.
“Engineering is, at its core, about transformation,” Mastro told participants. “We take complex problems, operational needs, and emerging risks and turn them into solutions that are safe, reliable, and mission-ready for the fleet.”
NSWCPD Commanding Officer Capt. Joseph Darcy anchored his remarks in a 1974 speech by Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, who challenged engineers to never stop asking whether they understood not only what they were doing, but why. Darcy echoed that charge.
“Questions are some of our best weapons,” he said. “They help expose weaknesses in our arguments and help formulate solutions to those weaknesses. Don’t stop asking questions.”
Keynote speaker Senior Scientific Technical Manager for Engineering and Technology at NAVSEA Warfare Centers, Farzana “Deeba” Chowdhury expanded that message to the strategic environment engineers face today.
“What does it mean to be an engineer today, in an era when our adversaries are innovating at a blistering pace?” she asked. “You represent the intellectual firepower that will define the next generation of our Navy’s dominance.”
The kickoff set the tone for the week. NSWCPD translated that call to curiosity and innovation into tangible engagement — opening its labs to students, connecting young engineers with seasoned professionals, and highlighting leaders whose paths into engineering were anything but predictable.
NSWCPD’s hallways filled with students and teachers for a hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Outreach Day event. Sixty-one students, including 51 from Add B. Anderson School in Philadelphia and 10 members of the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics Competition (FRC) robotics team, LunaTecs, FRC 316, moved through laboratories more often associated with ship systems and propulsion testing than with middle school field trips.
Capt. Darcy greeted the group with an unexpected analogy: the LEGO brick. He used it to illustrate how even the most familiar object embodies layers of engineering design, materials science, and manufacturing precision. From there, he drew a line to the complex systems NSWCPD engineers design and sustain for the fleet. Students rotated through several test sites and labs. At each stop, engineers translated technical concepts into demonstrations, from control systems that make constant adjustments to keep ships steady at sea to fluid dynamics experiments that let students see the principles in action.
NSWCPD Controls Engineering LPD Navigation Lead Jennifer DeFriece described control systems as “quiet problem-solvers in the background,” explaining that without them, the ship would not behave properly. Nearby, students experimented with wave mechanics and electromagnetism, sometimes with wide eyes as magnets snapped together or fields pushed objects apart.
For members of the LunaTecs robotics team, the exchange was mutual. Between tours, they rolled out their competition robot and demonstrated sensors, wiring, and code to younger students.
The most reflective portion of STEM Day came during a career panel moderated by Mastro. NSWCPD Engineers Shrey Shah, Yaseen Farooq, Sharifa Sharfeldden, and Jaime Calderon discussed their career journeys and fielded a variety of questions from students.
“For me, it really came down to exposure and asking questions,” Farooq told the students. “Once you start pulling on that string of curiosity, engineering becomes a way to keep asking better questions and then actually build the answers.”
If STEM Day highlighted the spark of curiosity, another Engineers Week event focused on representation and professional identity.
To conclude the week, NSWCPD hosted a virtual STEM Engineering Leadership Panel featuring three mechanical engineers whose careers span academia, national security, space, and community outreach: Dr. Kerri Phillips of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; Dr. Julie Drzymalski of Temple University; and Dr. Laura Stubbs of the University of Pennsylvania.
The panel drew more than 75 attendees, including students from schools in Pennsylvania and Delaware, as well as early-career engineers and seasoned professionals.
The panelists described career paths that were anything but linear. Stubbs once planned to become a lawyer. Drzymalski considered majoring in music. Phillips dreamed of becoming an astronaut before shifting toward systems engineering.
Their collective message was consistent: engineering rewards persistence more than early certainty.
“Try new things,” Drzymalski advised students. “You have to love what you do. Don’t be afraid to take risks.” Phillips addressed a question about whether formal credentials define capability. Having earned her master’s degree in systems engineering while working full-time, she emphasized that competence takes multiple forms. “I work with senior engineers who are systems engineers by degree, and I work with others who learned on the job,” she said. “When I have a systems engineer working with me, I usually do not know whether they are ‘degreed’ or not.”
When a Northeast High School student asked whether someone with graphic design skills could collaborate with engineers, Drzymalski pointed to the growing role of human-centered design.
“Yes,” she said. “Graphic designers work with engineers to translate functionality into something usable. But you have to be willing to learn the problem and understand the problem.”
Across the week’s events, a pattern emerged. At the strategic level, leaders called on engineers to remain curious and deliberate in a rapidly evolving threat environment. In the laboratories, students tested physical principles firsthand. On the virtual panel, professionals demonstrated that engineering identity is shaped as much by adaptability and communication as by equations.
More than half of NSWCPD’s workforce are engineers and scientists supporting surface ships and submarines, conducting research and development, test and evaluation, and in-service engineering. The command employs approximately 2,700 civilians and serves as the Navy’s lead organization for ship-system cybersecurity. But during National Engineers Week, the focus broadened. The conversation extended beyond propulsion bearings and power systems to the next generation, with robots rolling across a lab floor or engineers describing career pivots that once felt uncertain.
The week’s theme challenged participants to transform their future. At NSWCPD, that transformation was presented not as a single moment but as a continuum — one that begins with a question, grows through hands-on discovery, and matures into professional responsibility for systems that operate with no margin for error. Engineering is not only about building ships and systems. It is about building the people who will sustain them.
NSWCPD employs approximately 2,700 civilian engineers, scientists, technicians, and support personnel. The command conducts research and development, test and evaluation, acquisition support, and in-service and logistics engineering for non-nuclear machinery, ship machinery systems, and related equipment and material for Navy surface ships and submarines, and serves as the lead organization providing cybersecurity for all ship systems.