DVIDS – News – Kirtland Researchers Receive 2025 AFRL Fellow and Early Career Awards

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. — Five researchers from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Kirtland Air Force Base have been named 2025 AFRL Fellows or recipients of the Science and Engineering Early Career Award, recognizing their major contributions to science, technology and national defense.

This year’s awardees are Dr. Wellesley Pereira, Dr. Nicholas Shuman, Dr. Maxwell Gregoire, Capt. (Dr.) Ashwin Rao, and Dr. Lauren Schatz. Their work supports mission-critical areas such as space sensing, nuclear modernization, and advanced navigation, advancing both Air Force and Space Force capabilities.

The AFRL Fellows program honors the top lab’s technical staff for outstanding career accomplishments. Established in 2012, The Early Career Award highlights emerging leaders in science and engineering who have already made significant impacts early in their careers.

This year, Dr. Pereira and Dr. Shuman were named the 2025 AFRL Fellows, and Capt. (Dr.) Rao, Dr. Gregoire, and Dr. Schatz were the recipients of the Science and Engineering Early Career Award, which highlights emerging leaders.

Dr.Pereira, a mission area lead in the Space Vehicles Directorate, was named an AFRL Fellow for his leadership in space-based sensing. Since joining the lab in 2011, he has helped drive next-gen intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems. Pereira has led 19 collaborations worth $166 million, including international efforts, and played a key role in advancing hybrid space-based ISR. He’s also a fellow of SPIE and a Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Stellar Award winner.

Shuman, a senior chemist also in the Space Vehicles Directorate, was selected as a Fellow for his work in plasma chemistry and ionospheric science. He’s led six flight experiments since 2011 and helped transition three models that directly support U.S. Indo-Pacific Command mission planning. With 27 collaborations totaling $70 million and 138 published journal articles, Shuman’s research supports priorities like nuclear-resilient communications and space situational awareness.

Gregoire, a senior physicist, earned the Early Career Award for leadership in quantum sensing and navigation. Since joining AFRL in 2018, he’s led multiple programs focused on quantum and classical solutions for GPS-denied environments. He’s considered the Air Force’s lead expert in atom interferometry, which could help redefine future military navigation systems.

Rao, chief of the Nuclear Science Section, is the first uniformed officer to receive the Early Career Award. Since 2022, he’s made big strides in hypersonic and nuclear modernization, helping save $90 million by revitalizing the Prometheus Re-entry Testbed. His work on the Optical Sensing of Plasmas in the Re-entry Environment program led to the world’s first measurements of radiative emissions in that environment.

Schatz, a physicist in the Directed Energy Directorate, also received the Early Career Award for her work in space domain awareness. Since 2021, she’s led the development of a new wavefront sensor and a coronagraph to help detect and image adversary satellites. Her research has supported major upgrades to a $350 million space imaging system used by the Department of Defense. She also validated the world’s highest-power sodium beacon laser guide star, now in use at AFRL’s Starfire Optical Range.

Each award includes a three-year, $300,000 research grant to help recipients continue pushing the boundaries of science and technology in support of national security.

AFRL continues to be a pioneer in innovation, playing an integral role in leading the discovery, development, and integration of affordable warfighting technologies for our air, space, and cyberspace force with more than 11,500 personnel across nine technology areas and 40 global sites.