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Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Names Dennis McBride Executive Vice President

26 April, 2001

Arlington, Va. - The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a nonpartisan technology policy research institute in Arlington, Va., today announced the appointment of Dennis McBride, Ph.D., as executive vice president. McBride will assume duties as chief operating officer and will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Institute.

"Dr. McBride already has contributed considerably to the Potomac Institute's growth, having served as a key advisor and member of the board of regents," said Mike Swetnam, president of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. "Nobody is more qualified to expand the Institute’s role in national science and technology policy."

McBride comes to the Potomac Institute from the University of Central Florida, where he was executive director of the internationally recognized Institute for Simulation and Training (IST), as well as a professor of psychobiology, and of engineering. Under McBride's leadership, IST grew significantly in mission and scope. Contracts and grants, research infrastructure, and faculty and graduate student participation increased by nearly 100 percent. He successfully launched international efforts in the fields of entertainment technology, emotion-enhanced computer generated forces, advanced distributed learning, disaster simulation and consequence management, and biological simulation. McBride also led the development and introduction of the nation’s first multi-disciplined doctorate program in modeling and simulation, scheduled to begin this fall.

In 1999, McBride completed a 20-year Navy career at the grade of captain, Medical Service Corps, as an aerospace engineering psychologist. His assignments spanned six Navy laboratories, including the Naval Research Laboratory, with headquarters assignments at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Navy Medical Research Institute, and the Office of Naval Research. Duties took him from human engineering in the areas of anti-submarine warfare, electronic warfare, air-to-air warfare, mine warfare, and most recently, to information warfare. While serving as a program manager for warfighting simulation at DARPA, McBride initiated the first Office of the Secretary of Defense-approved Advanced Concepts Technology Demonstration, known as Synthetic Theatre of War, which is the foundation for current and future combat simulation capability.

McBride pursued his first doctorate in experimental psychology, specializing in mathematical learning theory, from the University of Georgia. His post-doctoral studies include a master's degree in systems from the University of Southern California, master's degrees in public administration, and a summer residence at the Santa Fe Institute for the Study of Complex Adaptive Systems. His second doctorate from the London School of Economics is pending. Trained as a flight test engineer at the University of Tennessee Space Institute while assigned to the Naval Air Test Center, McBride was selected by the Navy as an astronaut candidate.

McBride has received numerous awards and military decorations including Defense Superior Service, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service, and Joint Service Commendation Medals. He has published and presented more than 150 scientific articles, technical reports, and book chapters in the fields of psychobiology, experimental psychology, medical and pharmacological research, engineering science, operations research, complexity science, political science, and public policy.

As an adjunct professor at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, his research focuses on modeling complex adaptive systems. In addition to serving on the board of regents of the Potomac Institute, McBride has participated in and advised several Institute projects, including Out of the Box and Into the Future, Navy Missile Defense, Rapid Mine Clearance System, Advanced Distributed Learning, National Health Care, Navy Chief Technology Office, Virtual Environments, and Augmented Cognition.

The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit policy research institute that provides nonpartisan analysis of technology and technology policy to leaders in government, industry and academia. With a reputation for fierce objectivity, the Institute has conducted studies on a wide range of technology and technology policy issues, including defense acquisition reform, dual use technology, space commercialization, cyber-terrorism and biological terrorism.