Wednesday Future 5 Spotlight: Imani Davis

	Imani Davis

Each year, AOC recognizes five young professionals as the year’s "Future 5" – individuals who actively innovate and strive for excellence as they support their respective organizations and build their EMSO careers. In each issue of the Show Daily, we will spotlight one of this year's Future 5 and their career goal in their own words.

Today, we recognize Imani Davis, Computer Scientist, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division

My ultimate career goal within the EMS industry is to facilitate the convergence of cyber and electronic warfare through research and development, workforce development, and improved collaborations across various communities. At its maturity, this requires the execution of multiple smaller efforts that will grow and intertwine to create a cyber-EW community. If I were to put this into a position, it would be a Chief Scientist or Engineer. This role would enable me to be a technical advisor, identify opportunities for research, ensure our capabilities meet the mission, and most importantly, grow and mentor our rising engineers. My current role for the Electromagnetic Warfare Science and Technology Division allows me to explore the current cyber-EW landscape, expand our opportunities for collaboration, and grow our digital payload capabilities to include RF-Enabled cyber. In this role, I’ve further developed my leadership skills and have been exposed to the requirements and challenges of developing a new capability for an organization. These lessons learned will be very useful on my path to growing the cyber-EW coalition for Crane and navigating how to expand this culture across the DoD. The visibility of this role has connected me with engineers who have similar cyber backgrounds, but were lost at how they could contribute to an EW mission. I am grateful to be able to help them explore the various applications and opportunities for integrating cyber into the EW world. Throughout my career, I aim to continue to pave the way for new capabilities and efforts with the hope to motivate and uplift the rising engineers in our community.