James Grimsley serves as the Executive Director for Advanced Technology Initiatives with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and also serves as an Oklahoma Transportation Commissioner with oversight and governance responsibilities for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Mr. Grimsley currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Commercial Drone Alliance (CDA) as well as a variety of other boards and advisory groups. As part of Mr. Grimsley’s Choctaw Nation duties, he currently manages the FAA BEYOND Program (the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is the only tribal lead participant in the BEYOND program), and previously managed the FAA Integration Pilot Program (IPP) for the Choctaw Nation. Mr. Grimsley’s degrees are in aerospace and mechanical engineering, and he has more than 32 years of professional experience in the aviation and defense industries including corporate executive experience as well as being an Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Oklahoma. Mr. Grimsley has published papers in both peer-reviewed engineering journals and law journals on issues related to drones and emerging aviation. Mr. Grimsley has also testified before Congress on aerospace innovation topics and has appeared multiple times before the Oklahoma legislature to discuss aerospace and aviation policy issues. Mr. Grimsley has been a regular speaker at industry conferences and a commentator in the press since 2007 for drone and emerging aviation topics.
Eugene Myers does research at NSA’s Laboratory for Advanced Cybersecurity Research, specializing in operating system and firmware security. He received his D.Sc. in Computer Science from George Washington University, where he focused on parallel processing hardware. Dr. Myers has over 40 years of government service, including 30 years of combined active duty and reserve military service, in both the Army and the Air Force. He has been involved with Botball since 2004 as a coach, competitor, and developer.
Braden McDorman is the co-founder and CTO of Semio, a Los Angeles-based startup creating the operating system, app ecosystem, and developer tools for social robots. Braden was a Botball participant from 2006 to 2010 and now serves on the KISS Institute’s Board of Directors and Technical Advisory Committee. Braden has previously worked at Disney Research, Microsoft, and in advisory roles for early-stage startups.