Enhancing Defense Testing with Experimental Design | Fireside Chat with Dr. Raymond Hill

Thought Leader: Dr. Raymond Hill is a Professor of Operations Research in the Department of Operational Sciences at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). With a distinguished career in the U.S. Air Force and over 100 published journal papers, he is widely recognized for applying rigorous statistical methods and experimental design to defense applications. He also serves as an associate editor for leading journals including Naval Research Logistics, Military Operations Research, and Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, contributing to both academic advancement and practical implementation of operations research. Topic Overview: This session explores the impactful role of Design of Experiments (DoE) in defense testing and analysis, as Dr. Hill presents four real-world case studies from areas like ballistic modeling, wind tunnel testing, and computational fluid dynamics. He demonstrates how statistical thinking enhances experimental efficiency, reduces costs, and improves decision-making in high-stakes military settings. Topics include response surface methods, Latin hypercube sampling, and definitive screening designs, showing how modern design techniques support simulation-based experimentation. This talk is essential for anyone working at the intersection of statistics, engineering, and defense analysis.