Committee Bios

Sherry Yang, Boeing

Sherry Yang is manager of airspace operational efficiency (AOE) at Boeing Research & Technology (BR&T) in Fairfax, Virginia. She is responsible for executing AOE’s missions and collaborating with government agencies and industry partners for advanced technology development in the areas of autonomous operations (AO), trajectory-based operations (TBO), artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), air traffic management (ATM), and advanced air mobility (AAM)/urban air mobility (UAM). Working across technologies and businesses, Yang facilitates public and private partnerships to develop and evaluate new technologies and operation concepts for the aviation ecosystem. Yang is heavily engaged with government, industry, and academia technical committees. She is an associate fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), a technical advisor to the ICC AIA Member of the ICAO Information Management Panel, and a member of AIA, ATCA, and CANSO.

Prof.dr.ir. Erik Theunissen

Prof. Theunissen has been active in the field of avionics for over 30 years. He is a member of the AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Technical Committee and RTCA Special Committee 228. Since 2003 he is a professor (part-time) at the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA). The company ISD, which he founded in 1988, has designed synthetic vision systems for Rockwell Collins that have been flight-tested in the Boeing 727 from the FAA, the Boeing 737-900 Technology Demonstrator, the NASA Boeing 757 ARIES, and several other test aircraft). Since 2008 he has been involved in the design and evaluation of Detect and Avoid systems for unmanned aircraft, and since 2010 his company ISD is involved in the design of the GA-ASI Conflict Prediction and Display System (CPDS). Between 2014 and 2018 he supported flight testing of CPDS, a prototype self-separation system, at NASA Armstrong. For his research, he has received over 20 international awards among which two times the MITRE-sponsored David Lubkowski Award for Best of Conference.

Dr. Jonathan Lee, US DOT, Volpe Center

Dr. Jonathan Lee has 20 years of experience in the aviation field. He is currently the senior project lead in Air Traffic Control Concepts and Systems. Prior to that, he was the chief of the Aircraft Wake and Weather Division. Dr. Lee has worked on projects sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). His areas of research include air traffic management (ATM) concepts and systems research and development; human-system integration; National Airspace System (NAS) modeling, simulation, and optimization; and performance evaluation and assessment of the NAS. Some of the projects he has been involved in include FAA Tailored Arrivals, FAA Remote Tower, the NASA NextGen ATM-Airportal, NASA Virtual Airspace Modeling and Simulation, and the NASA Detroit Deicing Decision Support Tool. He holds a patent on modeling deicing process on airport surface.

Brent Phillips, FAA

Brent Phillips is a senior systems engineer with the Federal Aviation Administration’s NextGen Organization and the U.S. panel member to the International Civil Aviation. Organization (ICAO) Communications Panel. Mr. Phillips is also the program co-lead for the joint FAA/SESAR Future Communications Infrastructure Study including the development of the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS) and the Next Generation SATCOM Systems. He is currently leading the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) standards development for aviation use in the FAA. He is also serving as the communications lead on the NAS Enterprise Architecture Roadmap Team.

Dr. Nikos Fistas, EUROCONTROL

Dr. Nikos Fistas has been with EUROCONTROL for over 25 years leading development activities for new aviation communication systems starting from investigations and leading to definition and standardization of datalinks for communication (terrestrial and SATCOM based) as well as for surveillance purposes. Since 2020, he is the datalink manager, overseeing the agency’s activities to support the deployment and operations of CPDLC in Europe. Before this, he oversaw the agency’s activities relating to the future aeronautical communication infrastructure (FCI), leading the development of AeroMACS, LDACS and SATCOM systems. In the context of SESAR, he was responsible for supporting the various COM solutions and led the relevant international coordination aspects with ICAO and the U.S. FAA under Coordination Plan 4.4. Nikos is representing EUROCONTROL in various international standardization groups, such as ICAO, EUROCAE, RTCA, AEEC and ETSI, covering data-link aspects. He currently leads the ICAO Communication Panel Project Team SATCOM, which is tasked to update the ICAO SATCOM provisions (SARPs and Manual).

Lance Sherry, George Mason University

Lance Sherry is an associate professor of systems engineering and operations research at George Mason University. Dr. Sherry also serves as the director of the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research at George Mason University. Dr. Sherry has over 30 years of experience in the aviation industry serving as a flight-test engineer, flight control engineer, system engineer, lead system architect, program manager, strategic planning and business development. Dr. Sherry served as a fellow at RAND Corporation 1999-2001. He has published over 100 papers and journal articles, holds several patents, and has received awards for his work.