Education and Professional Development Colloquium (EPD)

Dr Jerry Diaz is the Director for Analysis, Chief of Technology and Innovation Office (CTIO/S9), Office of the Chief of Space Operations, Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

As the Director for Analyses, he serves as key technical advisor to the SECAF, Chief of Space Operations (CSO), CSO Deputies, CSAF and HAF Deputy Chiefs of Staff and DAF space representative to the OSD, JCS and Congressional staffs regarding Space Force analytic and assessment efforts. Dr Diaz assists the highest-levels of Space Force in datadriven decisions by provide analytically driven insights that are meaningful, repeatable, and defensible. He supports the USSF Staff’s analytic needs by providing independent, objective, and relevant analytic-based insights in four primary areas: Human Capital Analytics, Operations, Strategy and Resources, and Technology & Innovation. Further, he leads the S9 to build coalitions to create common situational awareness to align, integrate, and synchronize the space analytic enterprise’s efforts to better address the CSO’s issues, close data gaps, and reduce redundancies to provide insightful Senior Leader products that are data driven, analytically sound, and based in strategy and lessons learned.

Dr Diaz has had a diverse career as an Operations Research Analyst and Mathematician. Before retiring as an AF Colonel, he served as Department Head Mathematical Sciences, US Air Force Academy; Chief Analyst and then the Director, Resource Analyses for HQ AF/A9 Air Forces Studies and Analyses Agency; and as the Director, Office of Strategic Analyses, U.S. Embassy, Baghdad, Iraq. After retiring he joined the Homeland Security Institute (HSI) – the Federally Funded Research & Development Center for the Department of Homeland Security. As an HSI Fellow and Manager, he led HSI’s largest division directing operational analyses for DHS Hqs, the Transportation Safety Administration, U.S. Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, and U.S. Secret Service. He returned to the AF in 2011 as the AF Office of Aerospace Studies Tech Advisor for Analysis of Alternatives (AoAs) HQ AF/A5R, and then Chief, HR Data, Analytics, & Decision Support Division, HQ AF/A1X. Dr Diaz joined the US Space Force in February of 2020.

Dr. Gregory S. Parnell is a Professor of Practice in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas and is the Director of the M.S. in Operations Management (the university’s largest graduate program) and M.S in Engineering Management programs.

His research focuses on decision and risk analysis, systems engineering, and asset management. He was lead editor of Decision Making for Systems Engineering and Management, (2nd Ed, Wiley and Sons, 2011), lead author of the Handbook of Decision Analysis, Wiley Operations Research/ Management Science Series (Wiley and Sons, 2013), and editor of Trade-off Analytics: Creating and Exploring the System Tradespace, (Wiley & Sons, 2017). He is a fellow of the International Committee for Systems Engineering, the Institute for Operations Research/ Management Science, the Military Operations Research Society, and the Society for Decision Professionals. He has served on five National Academy of Science and Engineer Committees and chaired two.

His awards include the Joint ASEE SED/INCOSE Outstanding Systems Engineering Educator Award (2021), the INFORMS J. Steinhardt Prize (2020), the Decision Analysis Society Frank P. Ramsey Medal (2014), the MORS Wanner Award (2013), and the MORS Thomas Award (2002). He previously taught at West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Air Force Institute of Technology. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University and is a retired Air Force Colonel.