Mark Askelson

Biography

Dr. Askelson is the Associate Vice President for Research—National Security at the University of North Dakota (UND). He recently served as Executive Director of the Research Institute for Autonomous Systems (RIAS), Associate Dean of Research for the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, and Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at UND.

He has over 15 years of experience working with autonomous systems and over 25 years of research and applications experience with radar, including advanced applications involving radar polarimetry and phased array technologies.His areas of expertise include autonomous systems, testing and validation, and radar.

His current research efforts include Detect And Avoid (DAA) systems, integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) into the National Airspace System (NAS), and counter-UAS/autonomy.

Dr. Askelson has led multiple UAS research efforts, including multimillion-dollar efforts focused on using both ground-based phased-array radars (development of the Ganged Phased Array Radar-Risk Mitigation System; GPAR-RMS) and cooperative data (the Limited Deployment-Cooperative Airspace Project; LD-CAP) for DAA.

He is a lead in multiple ASSURE (Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence) research efforts.