Tom Shull
Dr. Shull has over 34 years experience in research and flight system development and management working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA) Langley Research Center. He worked primarily in the areas of instrumentation and data systems, remote instrumentation projects, and focused technology development. He progressed from circuit designer to electronic subsystem lead, technical manager, project manager, line supervisor, middle manager and senior system engineer, system management expert and consultant. Dr. Shull has a PhD. in Electrical Engineering from Old Dominion University and has taught graduate level courses in digital signal processing. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Virginia.
Dr. Shull completed his NASA career in the Langley Systems Management Office (SMO) where he conducted independent and on-going assessments of and consultation to aerospace flight projects to assure compliance with Agency and Center project management and systems engineering policy and procedures. He helped projects solve actual and mitigate potential systems engineering or systems management problems, establish sound practices and processes, and recommended process or performance changes to provide execution enhancements. He authored a Center policy guide for Center Program Management Council review and revised the Centers procedure for Flight Project Critical Milestone Review.
Dr. Shull served as interim Deputy Project Manager for a remote sensing satellite development project, where he was responsible for the documentation of requirements and defining or refining development processes. Working with the Centers Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG), he piloted a formalized requirements management process within the project, including sponsorship of NASA Engineering Training (NET) program team training.
He continued to work with the SEPG Chair to co-author a Center Procedure for Product Requirements Development and Management and develop a two year plan for Center-wide requirements process improvement, which was approved by Senior Management. He participated in an Agency-sponsored "Train-the-Trainer" program, becoming a certified in-house instructor for the NET System Requirements course.
Prior to entering the SMO, Dr. Shull was Assistant Director for Flight Systems in the Center's Systems Engineering Directorate (SED). He led the Directorate through ISO 9000 certification. He authored and co-authored numerous procedures for system engineering and development, concurring on all Directorate procedures. Dr. Shull also served nine years as the Head of SED Branches providing electronic systems engineering and development support within a matrix environment for Center space and aircraft flight programs and projects. He also led his Directorate, as principal point of contact, through the transition to performance based contracting. He participated in and managed all aspects of a system life cycle from concept definition to integration, test, and launch support.
As a technical manager and Branch Head, Dr. Shull was considered an expert in the areas of flight microprocessor-based instrumentation, data acquisition and signal processing system development, including system engineering and testing. He was the Project Manager and Principal Investigator for the Spaceflight Optical Disk Recorder technology development project. The goal was to produce a state-of-the-art, flight qualified, high performance (300 mbps, 8Gbyte), 14 inch disk drive and controller, including media and independently addressable laser diode array. This was a multi-Agency project that demonstrated the world's first eight-track re-writable optical disk recording. Dr. Shull was also responsible for development of numerous electronic subsystems for space and airborne instruments. He led the development of the Centers Computer Aided Engineering and Design for Electronics facility, establishing an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) capability and led ASIC insertion into Langley flight programs.