What are the Opportunities for Air Force Physicists?

[USAFA10s]

Hi,

I am an Air Force physicist (AFSC 61D). I just completed a PhD in physics at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) at Wright-Patt. I am currently working as a physicist for the Air Force and plan to teach physics at the upper high school (AP/IB) or college level after I get out of the AF. I noticed a few threads on here about Air Force physics opportunities, so I'm happy to answer any questions w.r.t that.

 

[berkeman]

Thank you sir, and Welcome to the PF.

 

[USAFA10s]

Thank you sir, and Welcome to the PF.

*Ma'am

 

[berkeman]

Oops! Sorry. And thank you for your service. (Army brat here)

 

[USAFA10s]

Oops! Sorry. And thank you for your service. (Army brat here)

No problem, it is the default assumption when you string together Air Force and Physics - I'm used to it, statistically speaking you had a pretty good shot at being correct, I think my career field is something like 90% men...

 

[jedishrfu]

Welcome to PF!

Besides teaching, there's always the UARCs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Affiliated_Research_Center

What is your favored specialty? what did you do your thesis on?

 

[USAFA10s]

Teaching is my passion, I just didn't know it until I was well on my way to being an Air Force officer.

My specialty is probably electro-optics/remote sensing/image processing

My research was two parts - developing a sensor emulator to generate realistic synthetic data for detection and tracking problems (http://spie.org/Publications/Proceedings/Paper/10.1117/12.2262193) and developing a detection algorithm with the potential to detect sub-pixel moving targets in wide area motion imagery in near-real time - very applied and borderline electrical engineering (currently stuck in PA office so not published yet)

 

[russ_watters]

Welcome to PF!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Welcome to PF @USAFA10s!

 

[Borg]

Welcome to PF.