DAHLGREN, Va. –
Grey English, a mechanical engineer at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), cares about his alma mater – Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).
He is among 180 VCU alumni at NSWCDD, according to Brooke Bowler, the division’s recruiting lead. VCU ranks fourth highest among college graduates at the division behind Virginia Tech (462 alumni), University of Mary Washington (423 alumni) and Old Dominion University (407 alumni).
VCU is 46 among the top 50 public research universities in the United States, according to the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey.
Charting a path to NSWCDD
In 2020, English had one year left at VCU. For the summer of 2020, when the workplace was adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic, English was looking for an internship. He talked with a family friend who worked at the division and then attended a NSWCDD Job Fair at the Fredericksburg Convention Center. He met with the internship coordinator who entered him into the registration system and gave him a nametag.
At the event, he met with, and gave his resume to, Chris Reichart in the High Powered Microwave (HPM) Integration Branch of the Integrated Engagement Systems Department at NSWCDD. A few weeks later, he accepted an invitation to intern there and Reichart became his branch head. Due to the pandemic, English’s internship was virtual, except for one day he came in for technology testing.
English’s internship led to full-time employment in the branch in August 2021, the same year he graduated from VCU with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical and nuclear engineering. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in the same major while in an academic fellowship program. He has two classes left before he graduates, which he anticipates this fall or the spring of 2027.
As a part of the HPM branch, English conducts tests that involve prosecuting targets with concentrated bursts of invisible electromagnetic waves.
His work started out in general mechanical engineering for various design efforts. His tasks have migrated to being on the road a lot, where he tests the lethality effectiveness of prosecuting HPM targets. Because of the safety constraints surrounding HPM testing, he spends quite a bit of time at desert facilities.
“I end up with lot of sand in my boots, but I enjoy it, especially being able to just get outside for work,” he said.
English has spent the past four years working with the Army and serving as a sounding board and independent evaluator for their HPM program. Whether it’s providing service to the Navy or the Army, English enjoys supporting the warfighter.
“Most of the stuff we touch on the day-to-day is for the future warfighter, for the warfighter of tomorrow,” he said. “It’s pretty rewarding to know you are creating that defensive bubble.”
Following a similar path
Running parallel with a three-year offset Joseph Lee was following in English’s footsteps.
Lee was in a professional development class at VCU. An employee from the HPM Integration Branch signed up for the class and he was accidentally put in the wrong room in a Zoom meeting with her. She introduced herself to Lee and he was intrigued that she worked at NSWCDD. He asked if he could provide her with his resume and they met up so he could give it to her. She reviewed it and shared it with branch heads. This led Lee, in the summer of 2023, to the Naval Research Enterprise Intern Program, which provides undergraduate and graduate students with the opportunity to participate in guided research at a Navy laboratory for 10 weeks. He was assigned to both her and English’s branch.
“I needed an internship, of course, but what held sway here was the actual work that I’d be able to do,” Lee said, noting he enjoys the hands-on work of mechanical engineering from designing and prototyping to testing.
He graduated in 2025 with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical and nuclear engineering and is pursuing a master’s degree in the same major with plans to graduate this fall or the spring of 2027. He is currently in the merit-based SMART (Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation) Scholarship-for-Service Program, a continuation from the summers of 2024 and 2025. After graduating from the program, he plans to work full-time at NSWCDD with a goal to pursue a doctorate.
Prior to graduating from VCU, Lee was on a student team for a NSWCDD-sponsored capstone project at the university about a dynamometer designed to simulate rotational loads during critical defense testing.
The project won the Director’s Choice Award at the VCU College of Engineering Capstone Design Expo in 2025, which showcased more than 90 student projects and presentations.
Crossing paths
English is a resident expert in measuring energy related to HPM. Accurate readings ensure the engineers can correctly advise the Navy how much power is required from an HPM system to disable or destroy a particular piece of adversary technology. According to English, there had to be a way to automate the process to measure energy - a way to save time but still produce accurate results. The current method requires repeatedly firing the waves at manually placed targets. Engineers working with English must power the system down to move the targets for the next set of measurements because they can’t be exposed to the levels of energy being tested. The targets are manually moved hundreds of times during a standard test and every time they are adjusted the systems must be shut off. English and his team produce accurate results, but at what cost?
To solve this, English drafted a challenge for four VCU students for a multidisciplinary senior capstone project: design an automated system to streamline this process. As a part of this, he reached out to Lee to provide feedback and serve as a mentor on the project.
The students delivered a design for a moving gimbal system for the probe used to measure the intensity of electromagnetic radiation with the ability to capture hundreds of measurements. The prototype is one-and-a-half foot by one-and-a-half foot for a 10-foot design.
Landen Sabolski was the project manager for the team.
“The system was fully designed and developed by our team with the goal of improving precision and repeatability during testing procedures,” Sabolski said. “By computerizing the movement of the probe, test engineers can now confidently position the probe at exact coordinates without discrepancies.”
The HPM project won the People’s Choice Award at the VCU College of Engineering Capstone Design Expo in the spring of 2026 – an honor determined by public vote among 90 competing student projects.
Paving a path for future engineers
English shared his experience from working with the students.
“Every time I work with the students, whether it was with Joseph’s group or this one, it is a unique perspective – because they come up with ideas that I would either never have or couldn’t just because they’re looking at it from a different light, whereas I’m looking at it from what I’m used to here, so it’s kind of nice to get that,” he said.
When Lee was on the senior design team for the dynamometer project, he learned most from being presented with a need that required coming up with a solution. The team spent one to two months testing ideas before coming up with the project.
Ultimately, the HPM project highlighted a shared commitment by Lee, English, NSWCDD and VCU to cultivate the next generation of engineers.
As English noted, “I also just enjoy being able to give back both to the program that I came from and to the next group of engineers coming because there is potential, like me, to work here now.”