Dr. Aisha Haynes, Vice President, brings more than 20 years of experience working for the Department of Defense in developing and translating emerging technologies to the field. Her expertise is in advanced materials, materials dynamics, and science and technology (S&T) strategy.
Prior to joining SMI, she served as the Principal Director for the Advanced Materials Critical Technology Area in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. As Principal Director, she provided strategic oversight and leadership of DoD’s more than $1 billion portfolio for materials science and technology. She also developed and led strategies for advancing materials through AI, automation, and advanced manufacturing.
Previously, Aisha held several senior roles from Senior Researcher to Senior Scientific Technical Manager (SSTM) for Materials, Producibility, Engineering Analysis, and Prototyping at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities and Development Command at Armaments Center. As SSTM, Aisha led and managed a multi-million-dollar enterprise and multi-disciplinary workforce in materials science and engineering, computational structural and fluid dynamics, and manufacturing and producibility of armaments technologies.
Aisha has also taught materials science and engineering at the U.S. Army’s Armaments Graduate School at Picatinny Arsenal and was an adjunct professor for materials science at State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Aisha holds a B.S. in Engineering Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.