Currently a director at the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF), Deborah Kirkman has worked to enable innovation in aviation for nearly four decades. She is leading FSF’s efforts to develop a research roadmap for future safety innovations including those supporting advanced air mobility (AAM), facilitates FSF’s Autonomous and Remotely Piloted Aviation Capabilities (ARPAC) advisory committee, and recently served on the FAA’s aviation rulemaking committee for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations.

Deborah began her career at Bell Laboratories. Much of her professional career was spent at the MITRE corporation, where she most recently managed MITRE’s portfolio of work in UAS integration. Her other systems engineering work in air traffic management includes digital pilot-controller communications, National Airspace System performance metrics, the Free Flight program, and NextGen. She has held several leadership roles in RTCA as well, including co-chairing the Business Case and Performance Metrics working group of RTCA’s NextGen Advisory Committee.

An instrument-rated private pilot, Deborah’s original studies were in Electrical Engineering, including a BS from the University of Virginia and an MSEE from Stanford University.