ANT Director becomes first ever Fulbright Scholar from AFIT

  • Published
  • By Bill Hancock
  • 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  Dr. John Raquet, director of the Advanced Navigation Technology Center at the Air Force Institute of Technology, was selected to become AFIT's first ever Fulbright Scholar for his proposal to spend six months conducting research and teaching the fundamentals of the Global Positioning System at the Tampere University of Technology in Tampere, Finland.

As an associate professor of electrical engineering at AFIT, Dr. Raquet was one of only 29 U.S. scholars selected to foster this education exchange in the engineering discipline during 2009-2010.

"It was more valuable than I had even anticipated," said Dr. Raquet.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is the most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange program in the world, supported for more than half a century by the American people through an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress and by the people of partner nations. The program was established by then freshman Senator J. William Fulbright, when he introduced a bill in Congress calling for the "promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture and science." President Harry S. Truman signed the bill into law in 1945.

Today, the Fulbright Program works with universities, schools, binational Fulbright commissions, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector to actively seek out individuals of academic achievement with leadership potential who represent the full diversity of their respective societies. Each year, the U.S. Fulbright Program sends approximately 1,100 American scholars abroad to lecture and conduct research in an array of academic and professional disciplines. Nominees are selected through open, merit-based competitions.

Since its inception, the program has fostered bilateral relationships between countries and governments working to meet shared needs. The fundamental principles of international partnership and mutual understanding are at the core of the Fulbright Program's mission.

AFIT is the Air Force's graduate school of engineering and management, as well as its institution for technical professional continuing education. AFIT Commandant, Brig. Gen. Walter Givhan, provided high praise to Dr. Raquet's Fulbright acceptance, "This great honor acknowledges the remarkable research and study of one of our own and provides the worldwide recognition of the academic prestige of AFIT. I am very proud of Dr. Raquet's accomplishment".

As Director of AFIT's ANT Center, Dr. Raquet works on developing GPS and non-GPS navigation systems for military use. As a Fulbright Scholar at the Tampere University of Technology, Dr. Raquet conducted research and worked with graduate level students in the Department of Computer Systems. Going to TUT was a natural fit, Dr. Raquet said, because the research the university does is so similar to that of the ANT Center. However, there is one big difference. While the ANT Center is striving to provide navigation solutions for the warfighter, Tampere University of Technology is focused on navigation for mass-market consumer use.

"I found it very professionally helpful because it's looking at the same problems with a different set of constraints," he said. Finland is, after all, home of cellular-phone maker Nokia. Working just across the street from Nokia research facilities and its subsidiary companies, Dr. Raquet was able to consider his research in a new way. "I really came away with a lot of ideas that I could bring back to AFIT, and in fact we've already started implementing some of them," he said. Dr. Raquet also has taken some of the educational methods that he observed in Finland and applied them at AFIT, such as extensive use of in-class exercises to improve student understanding.

Another similarity - "I found Tampere to be a lot like Dayton, which started as essentially an industrial city, but which has been transitioning towards more high-tech activity. Also, both cities are similar in size and have a strong university presence." Dr. Raquet said.

During their time in Finland, Dr. Raquet and his family also experienced a different lifestyle. They took in the sights, learned to cross-country ski, and embraced the Finnish affinity for saunas and winter swimming, and learned to love Finnish food. Living in Tampere - in the Southwestern region of Finland - from January to June, Dr. Raquet was able to keep in touch with his department and his students back at AFIT, so when he returned to Ohio, the transition back to AFIT was smooth.

Dr. Raquet plans to continue the education exchange spawned by his Fulbright experience, keeping in touch with the faculty and researchers in Tampere and using the relationship to support AFIT and the ANT Center.

To learn more about the Advanced Navigation Technology Center visit:
http://www.afit.edu/en/ant/.