Three young Raytheon engineers are among a select group being recognized by the National Engineers Week Foundation’s annual “New Faces of Engineering” program this week.

The program highlights the interesting and unique work of young engineers who demonstrate outstanding abilities and leadership. In addition to honoring these engineers, the award is intended to inspire young people to consider engineering as a career.

Dennis Lee, a Space and Airborne Systems (SAS) senior systems engineer, was named one of 14 “New Faces” the foundation is recognizing as remarkable newcomers. As a result of this honor, Lee was featured in a full-page ad National Engineers Week in USA Today, and on the Engineers Week website.

To search for “new faces,” the foundation each year asks its member societies and organizations to nominate colleagues 30 years old and younger. Also among the 55 receiving nominations for the honor were Missile Systems senior engineer Lukas Kunz and SAS engineer Brian Gahan.

Dennis Lee – Space and Airborne Systems
Nominated by the Project Management Institute

Dennis Lee supports the Electro-Optic imaging system on board the Global Hawk UAV. This intelligence-gathering system provides real-time images to warfighters and is credited with saving the lives of U.S. personnel and allies. Lee is responsible for both the production of the system and for developing new capabilities needed by our warfighters.

In addition to his technical skills, Lee’s management ability has made him an effective lead for his engineering team on many investigations. He has completed Raytheon’s System Engineering Technical Development Program (SEtdp), an extensive learning program focused on turning today’s bright systems engineers into tomorrow's technical directors, chief engineers and senior architects. During this two-year program, Lee demonstrated excellent leadership ability, culminating in his team’s presentation of a paper (A Systems Engineering Approach to Educational Decomposition) at the Raytheon Systems Engineering Symposium in August 2007.

As an undergraduate, Lee was part of a research team that presented original work on the design and testing of a micro-electromechanical systems-based microfluidic system at a University of California, Irvine symposium in 2000. Lee is an active member of the Chinese Institute of Engineers-USA and co-chair of Engineers Week 2008. 

He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Irvine, in 2000, and his master’s in engineering management from the University of Southern California in 2008.

Brian Gahan – Space and Airborne Systems
Nominated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Brian Gahan, a multidisciplined engineer at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems in McKinney, Texas, plays an integral role in the Materials and Process group within the Radomes and Specialty Apertures department. Gahan designs new materials and processes, particularly related to programs in the low observables field.

In addition to troubleshooting various material-related problems, Gahan has successfully resolved processing and producibility issues on phenolic epoxy, carbon-based absorbers and glass-reinforced foam. These contributions have been key to introducing new products into the defense industry.

Gahan is also responsible for the design, transition to production, and production support of several different antenna programs, assisting with quotes for different antenna and radome programs.

Lukas Kunz – Raytheon Missile Systems
Nominated by American Institute of Chemical Engineers

Lukas Kunz is a senior multidisciplined engineer in the Radio-Frequency Signal Processing department at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Ariz., where he focuses on algorithm development for air-to-ground radar applications. Kunz has been involved in the conceptual design, development and demonstration of advanced sensor technologies to help protect warfighters in battlefield environments.

While earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at Brigham Young University, Kunz was a research assistant at the Microwave Earth Remote Sensing Laboratory. His thesis research focused on space-borne scatterometer measurements of the Earth’s polar regions. His research resulted in a conference paper presented at the 2004 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, as well as publications appearing in IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (2005) and IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (2006).

Kunz is currently mentoring another young engineer. Together they have developed an algorithm for which they will apply for a patent.

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