Six NUWC Division Newport employees win Black Engineer of the Year Awards

Six NUWC Division Newport employees win Black Engineer of the Year Awards

By NUWC Division Newport Public Affairs

NEWPORT, R.I. -

Six Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport employees have been selected as winners of the 2025 Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program in various categories.

Dr. Derke Hughes, an engineer in the Undersea Warfare (USW) Sensors and Sonar Systems Department, is the winner of BEYA's Senior Investigator Award, which honors research and development engineers who are leaders in advancing basic science knowledge or discovering, developing, and implementing new technology. For over 23 years, Hughes has been and continues to be a basic and applied scientific pioneer in the area of bio-mimetic sound transduction.

Specifically, he has been the principal investigator at Division Newport, working on a Division Newport and Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency-funded project that explores and seeks to understand the sound production capability of the cicada's transduction mechanism from biologic, physiologic, engineering, signal processing, modeling and simulation perspectives. In the past year, Hughes has created technical memoranda about hydrophone drift caused by sea conditions and a sensitivity analysis on hydrodynamic coefficients for torpedo and salvo weapons. The hydrophone study analyzed the sea current and wind speed to determine the uncertainty between the GPS information on the buoy compared to the hydrophone's actual location below the water surface. "His significant STEM achievements stood out among other applicants, resulting in this prestigious honor," the announcement states.

Winners of BEYA's Modern-Day Technology Leaders Award, which honors engineers who are shaping the future of engineering, science and technology, include Hadi Bah and Andrew Eatman, both from the USW Combat Systems Department, and Brian Souder and Chris Williams, both from the USW Sensors and Sonar Systems Department.

As technical program manager infrastructure lead, Undersea Warfare Decision Support System Team, Bah, distinguished himself as a technical leader and innovator. Last year, he accepted a year-long temporary assignment with the Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems, supporting the principle assistant program manager at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington D.C. Working with personnel from NUWC Division Keyport and Naval Sea Systems Command 05N, Bah successfully developed and integrated critical software that ensures all U.S. and allied submarines can safely operate submerged without collision. Through his analysis, Bah recognized that the new software could be installed on older Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services hardware platforms. Being able to use the software on older platforms ensures that there will be no gap in warfighting capabilities. The work marked the culmination of four years of systems engineering, software development and testing. He has been employed at Division Newport since 2016.

Eatman, integration lead for the Tomahawk Weapons Control System, began his career at Division Newport in 2017, working as a Tomahawk Weapons System (TWS) test engineer. He currently serves as the integration lead for the Tomahawk Weapons Control System (TWCS) in the BYG-1 Combat and Weapons Control System. Eatman is responsible for preparing for the test and fleet delivery of all variations of TWCS. In submarine combat control systems, there are multiple baselines, and each baseline contains different launcher configurations. The last two baselines that Eatman supported had over 48 different TWCS configurations - a tremendous task which he successfully completed. "With an eye toward efficiency and cost savings, Eatman decreased the TWS server count by 50%, resulting in a reduction to acquisition cost, physical footprint and power consumption for the fleet, the award states. "These efforts have streamlined the process and reduced the time required for system integration and lab-based testing, which allows for the team to be more efficient and produce better outputs for the overall testing schedule."

Souder is currently serving as the engineering team lead of the Ocean Operations Group inside of the Maritime Surveillance Systems portfolio for the Prototypes Development Branch in the Undersea Warfare Sensors and Sonar Systems Department. In addition to his role as team lead, Souder is also the Division Newport site director for Special Mission Ships Activity Williamsburg at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Cheatham Annex, in Virginia. Following a distinguished 20-plus year career as U.S. Navy submarine officer, Souder joined Division Newport in 2021. As operations manager, he established lasting processes to institutionalize effective tools to supervise and coordinate technically complex industrial-level at-sea operations in multiple oceans, often simultaneously and in coordination with multiple Navy fleet commands at once. "He consistently exceeds expectations, as he models dedication and leadership to the warfighter," the award states.

Williams currently serves as the multi-function towed array (MFTA) fleet support baseline lead for the SQQ-89(V) Surface Ship Undersea Warfare Towed System Engineering Team. As baseline lead, he performs hardware/systems engineering to the OK-410 and MFTA systems for the AN/SQQ-89 Surface Ship Sonar program. In parallel, Williams is the in-service engineering agent for towed arrays, coordinating and providing direct support to the lead systems engineer, engineering team lead and technical program manager as necessary, ensuring that all fleet needs are met. In the past year, he specifically performed troubleshooting for MFTA, TB37 and TB37A. He also provided in-service and repair for depot and intermediate maintenance activities, often having to provide support and travel at the last minute both for domestic and Japan Foreign Military Sales systems.

"Over the past nine years at Division Newport, Williams has contributed greatly to the improvement, advancement and success of the towed array systems through troubleshooting, problem solving, and communication," the award states.

Tiffany Jackson-Henderson, an analyst and systems engineer in the USW Combat Systems Department, won a Science Spectrum Trailblazers Award, which honors engineers who are actively creating new paths for others in STEM.

Jackson-Henderson received the Science Spectrum Trailblazer Award, which honors engineers who are shaping the future of STEM. During the past 12 years at Division Newport, Jackson-Henderson has steadily assumed roles of increased complexity and responsibility. She currently serves as a Payload Control System (PCS) engineer for Submarine Combat and Weapons Control Program Office, finding technical solutions for the warfighter. Working out of the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., Jackson-Henderson provides technical direction and oversight for the PCS on the AN/BYG-1 combat system. Before that she served as the PCS integrated project team lead at Division Newport. In this role, she oversaw a team of approximately 20 government and contractor technical personnel, and managed the tasking, schedule, budget and deliverables for the team. "In addition to being a leader at work, Jackson-Henderson is also a leader in her community," the award states. "She has supported engineering workshops for grade school students and coached a middle school mathematics team that advanced to the state championship."

The award winners will be recognized at the 2025 BEYA STEM Awards ceremony to be held during the BEYA Stem Conference, Feb. 13-15, 2025, in Maryland.

NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the country, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains major detachments in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as well as test facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher's Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.

Join our team! NUWC Division Newport, one of the 20 largest employers in Rhode Island, employs a diverse, highly trained, educated, and skilled workforce. We are continuously looking for engineers, scientists, and other STEM professionals, as well as talented business, finance, logistics and other support experts who wish to be at the forefront of undersea research and development. Please connect with NUWC Division Newport Recruiting at this site- https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NUWC-Newport/Career-Opportunities/ and follow us on LinkedIn @NUWC-Newport and on Facebook @NUWCNewport.