• Winner of the R&D and Academia category (Academia): Dr Samantha Crompvoets of Rapid Context.
    Winner of the R&D and Academia category (Academia): Dr Samantha Crompvoets of Rapid Context.
  • Winner of the R&D and Academia category (Technical): Dr Yan Yang of Boeing Phantom Works International.
    Winner of the R&D and Academia category (Technical): Dr Yan Yang of Boeing Phantom Works International.
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With entries for ADM’s Women in Defence Awards (WIDA) 2022 closing tomorrow, ADM is taking a look back at the winners of our 2021 awards across nine categories.

The Research and Development category recognises the defence community’s most outstanding academic or researcher working on Defence related matters.

The 2021 winners were: (Academic) Dr Samantha Crompvoets of Rapid Context and (Technical) Dr Yan Yang of Boeing Phantom Works International.

Dr Crompvoets is founder, Executive Director and Chair at Rapid Context. She is responsible for growing the business and nurturing its organisational culture. She is a sociologist who is passionate about evidence-based reform and specialises in translating research into profound organisational insights, tangible impact and sustainable change.

She is a leading Military Sociologist that has been engaged by Defence to understand culture, reputation and trust. Dr Crompvoets has provided Defence with extensive advice and insights to allow it to better understand how leaders can best support their people and improve Defence capability through improved culture.

Dr Crompvoets has completed a large number of social research projects for Defence, including one to explore the health and wellbeing and organisational effectiveness of Special Operations Command. “The work she's done for Army has been first class and has made us a much better Army,” Chief of Army LTGEN Burr noted at Senate Estimates.

Dr Yang is Technical Lead Engineer and Associate Technical Fellow of The Boeing Company, and one of the world’s leading experts of Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and complex software systems. She works at Boeing’s Phantom Works International (PW-I), and is responsible for shaping the next generation of autonomous systems powered by advanced AI systems.

Dr Yang’s achievements in 2020 include patents granted for unsupervised machine learning for anomaly detection, and another for ensemble of low/high level image classification and clustering for texture analysis. These applications are all crucial pathfinders and building blocks for the Australian Defence Force customer to include a full range of AI capabilities in a wide group of platforms and systems.

The other finalists in the WIDA 2021 R&D and Academia category were: Dr Felicia Pradera of DMTC Limited, Dr Cate Carter of the Australian Army and Professor Siobhan Banks of University of South Australia,

Entries for the WIDA 2022 awards close on Tuesday 17th May. Submit your nomination here, or contact Associate Publisher Kylie Leonard for more information.

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