New director coming to AFRL Information Directorate in Rome Published May 15, 2009 By Derek Kaufman 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Air Force officials announced today Dr. Davy M. Belk will succeed Dr. Donald Hanson as director of the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate in Rome, N.Y. Dr. Belk, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is currently director, Engineering Directorate, Ogden Air Logistics Center, located at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Dr. Belk began his professional career in 1976 at the General Dynamics Fort Worth Division, participating in full scale design and development of the F-16 Fighting Falcon as a maintainability engineer. In 1978, he began work at Air Force Armament Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., serving there for nearly 16 years in a variety of research, technology development, system development and sustainment activities. He was later assigned to the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate, where he developed computational fluid dynamics methods. Dr. Belk has also served at Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command as Technical Director for the Directorate of Engineering and Technical Management. Dr. Belk received his Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas at Austin in 1976. He holds a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy in engineering from Mississippi State University. In his new position with AFRL in Rome, Dr. Belk will oversee the center responsible for leading the discovery, development, and integration of affordable warfighting information technologies for our air, space and cyber force. The Information Directorate's areas of investigation include a broad spectrum of information technologies for information fusion, information exploitation, information management, communications, command and control, advanced computing architectures, and cyber operations. The directorate reports to the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Dr. Hanson, also a member of the Senior Executive Service, plans to retire from federal service in June. He has led the AFRL Information Directorate's workforce of 825 military and civilian scientists, engineers and administrative and support people since 2005. Dr. Hanson began his career with the Air Force in 1968 when he joined the Rome Air Development Center. He has held a variety of assignments with progressive responsibility in both management and technical leadership positions, including director of the Air Force Research Laboratory Sensors Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. His principal technical work was conducted in the fields of photonics, radar and adaptive optics. He has written or co-written more than 10 publications in these areas, and holds two patents with co-inventors. AFRL is the Air Force's only organization wholly dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of warfighting technologies for our air, space and cyberspace forces.