Dr. Alex Kinsey is a Senior Principal Materials and Processes Engineer at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems Sector. He advises programs on material related design questions and performs root cause corrective action investigations on material failures of aerospace components. In addition to program responsibilities, Dr. Kinsey is a subject matter expert for vacuum brazing processes and metals additive manufacturing. In these roles, he provides metallurgical expertise to research and development projects, drafting company specifications, and performing audits of suppliers. Prior to joining Northrop Grumman, he worked for four years at Exponent, an engineering consulting firm focusing on failure analysis. At Exponent he performed failure analysis on a variety of material systems including medical implants, architectured glass, gas pipelines, automotive catalysts, organic coatings, and more. Dr. Kinsey received a B.A. in physics from Carleton College and a M.S.E and Ph.D in Materials Science and Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Elliot R. Wainwright received his BA in Physics & Mathematics from The College of Wooster, Wooster OH (2015) and his MSE & PhD in Materials Science & Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (2018 & 2020). Elliot joined the US Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL) as a civilian in Aug. 2020. He serves as a Research Materials Engineer working in the Detonation Science & Modeling branch within the Weapon Sciences Division, Army Research Directorate. His research specializes in reactive & energetic materials synthesis, characterization, and scale-up, particularly for powder, metal-based fuels with applications as explosive, propellant, and pyrotechnic additives. He has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts on these types of materials systems and their reaction mechanisms, including in journals such as Powder Technology, Combustion & Flame, Journal of Materials Science, Spectrochimica Acta Part B, etc., and has been highlighted on the cover of Advanced Engineering Materials. He has served as technical leadership in JANNAF sessions on Reactive Materials and serves as the Co-chair of the Tri-Service Reactive Materials Technical Exchange and 2024 Gordon Research Seminar on Energetic Materials. He is a recent recipient of ARL’s Grass Roots Innovation Tank (GRIT) award. During his short tenure at ARL he has authored over 12 technical reports and 9 presentations (3 invited) at various conferences and symposia with multiple best presentation awards.