October 2000 Newsletter - Naval Postgraduate School

MOVES GRADUATES ITS LARGEST CLASS
The Naval Postgraduate School’s Modeling, Virtual Environments
and Simulation (MOVES) Academic Group held its
first open house on the 30 th and 31 st of August to celebrate
four years of operation and the graduation of its largest class
ever, 13 Masters degrees in MOVES. Each graduating student
gave a presentation on their thesis, as well as an evening
demonstration of their developed software in the MOVES
Research Center.
Presentations ran the entire gamut of the MOVES research
spectrum. There was presented work on human-computer
interaction, networked virtual environments, computergenerated
autonomy, defense and entertainment collaboration,
and modeling and simulation. The first presentation of
the George L. Phillips Modeling, Virtual Environments and
Simulation Award to a graduating student, LCDR Kim
Roddy, USN, was also celebrated.
In addition to the student presentations, there were several
talks by faculty on the big picture with respect to the student
work. Highlights included Assistant Professor Rudy Darken’s
STUDENT RESEARCH
overview of human-computer interaction in MOVES,
Assistant Professor Don Brutzman’s overview on web-based
virtual environments research, Research Professor John Hiles’
multi-agent systems overview, Professor Michael Zyda’s
entertainment research directions overview, and Associate
Professor Tom Lucas’ joint combat modeling course overview.
Forty external visitors attended the open house, including
the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower
and Reserve Affairs, John McLaurin. Deputy McLaurin
combined the MOVES Open House with a review of the
Army Game Project spearheaded by the MOVES Academic
Group and the NPSNET Research Group. The staff of N6M,
the Navy Modeling and Simulation Management Office, the
Director of Research and Development of the Defense
Modeling and Simulation Office, were also in attendance.
Presentation slides and the agenda from the open house are
available on the web at http://www.npsnet.org/~moves/
OpenHouse/OpenHouseAgenda.html.
THE THESIS: The thesis is the capstone achievement of the student’s academic endeavor at NPS. Thesis
topics address issues from the current needs of the Fleet and Joint Forces to the science and technology
that is required to sustain long-term superiority of the Navy/DoD.
Students, with their faculty advisors, provide a very unique capability within the DoD for addressing
warfighting problems. This capability is especially important at the present time when technology in
general, and information operations in particular, are changing rapidly. Our officers must be able to think
innovatively and have the knowledge and skills that will let them apply technologies that are rapidly being
developed in both the commercial and military sectors. Their unique knowledge of operations, when
combined with a challenging thesis project which requires them to apply their focused graduate education,
is one of
the most
USMC
17%
International
19%
Army
8%
Other
(USAF/USNG/DoD Civ)
5%
Student Demographics: September 2000
(1347 Students in Residence)
effective
methods for
solving both
Fleet/Joint
Force problems
and
instilling the
life-long
capability for
applying basic
principles to
the creative
solution of
complex
problems.
TH
NPS Research page 25
October 2000
Navy
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