Southern Cross Chapter

Southern Cross Chapter

Chapter Region: Pacific
President Name: Mr. Peter G. Nikoloff
Address: NOVA Systems 27-31 London Road Mile End South SA 5031, Australia
Phone: 61-8-8252-7100
Email: peter.nikoloff@novaaerospace.com.au
Chapter Website Address: https://itea.org/itea-chapters/chapter-locations/international-region/43-share/itea-chapters/itea-southern-cross-chapter/326-itea-southern-cross-chapter-home-page.html

Mission Statement: The ITEA Southern Cross Chapter Mission Statement consists in promoting Test and Evaluation in a constantly changing technological world in Defence, Industry and Academia.

The Southern Cross Chapter council consists of five experienced T&Eers who volunteer their time to help progress the profession through promotion of ITEA as a forum for the exchange of ideas, network with colleagues and obtain rare-as-hens-teeth training. Come and meet your council at ITEA Chapter events.

Officers Names and Emails

President – Mr. Pete Nikoloff
Nova Systems (Adelaide, SA)
peter.nikoloff@novasystems.com

Mr. Peter Nikoloff obtained an Aeronautical Engineer degree from RMIT in 1986 and is a Director and Senior Weapons System Engineer at Nova Systems. He has over 20 years of experience supporting and conducting test and evaluation of military systems.

Prior to starting Nova Systems 12 years ago, Peter commenced his defence career with the DSTO working on towed target systems for Defence and the airframe life extension for the F/A-18.

Peter worked as a Flight Test Engineer at the Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU) in the role of Senior F/A-18 Test Engineer. At ARDU he worked on a number of the RAAF’s weapon systems, primarily F/A-18 and weapons related.

Peter has also had significant involvement with the Woomera Test Range both in its upgrades and operations, including air to ground and air to air weapons testing.

Vice-President – WGCDR Mal Tutty, CPEng, FIE(Aust), FRAeS
RAAF (Canberra, ACT)
malcolm.tutty@defence.gov.au

Dr Malcolm Tutty has served in the Air Force, Public Service and Industry in a multitude of test, operations, engineering, staff, project management and command roles. This includes being a flight test armament engineer at an aircraft research and development unit, an aircraft stores compatibility engineer while on exchange with the USAF during Gulf War I, the AP-3C Chief Engineer at Tenix, Director of both ASCENG and the Woomera Test Range, and being launch authority for two hypersonic firings into space. Recently he deployed into Afghanistan to conduct trials and field several new high-end EW systems. He is currently serving as a research fellow at the Air Power Development Centre and he has been a Fellow of both the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Institution of Engineers for over a decade.  Mal holds a Bachelors Degree in Electronics Engineering, a Masters Degree in Systems Engineering and has a PhD in the experimentation of military complex adaptive systems.

Treasurer – Mr. Stephane Collignon
DSTg (Edinburgh, SA)
stephane.collignon@dst.defence.gov.au

Stephane Collignon is currently Senior Information Technology Officer at Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Edinburgh, South Australia, working for the Electronic Warfare and Radar Division (EWRD). Stephane Joined DSTO Weapons Division System in 1999 after a career in industry as system support engineer, both in France with Burroughs Program Product Division and in Australia with Honeywell, supporting Australasia customer platforms. Stephane is the treasurer and past president of the International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA) Southern Cross Chapter. He is also member of the American Computer Machinery (ACM), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Australian Computer Society (ACS).

Stephane holds a master degree in computer sciences from Deakin University (Victoria). Stephane has published and presented many papers for SETE and other national and international conferences and journals.

Secretary – Mr. Neil Hansen, MEIAust CPEng
Australian Aerospace (Adelaide, SA)
neil.hansen@ausaero.com.au

Neil is currently the Instrumented Aircraft Specialist for Airbus ARH Tiger and MRH90 helicopter projects and is located at the Airbus facility at RAAF Edinburgh, SA. Neil assists flight testing of these aircraft through the preparation of the aircraft instrumentation, real-time telemetry monitoring and post flight data analysis and management. Previously, Neil spent 20+ years in the Canadian Air Force and the RAAF which included lengthy stints at the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment (AETE) in Canada and Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU) in Australia along with 46th Guidance Test Squadron, Holloman AFB (USA) and roles in major acquisition projects and through-life-support teams.

Neil holds a BSc Engineering from the University of Alberta (Canada, 1987) and an MSc Engineering from the US Air Force Institute of Technology (USA, 1993).

Keith Joiner
UNSW Research (Canberra, ACT)
k.joiner@adfa.edu.au

Dr Keith Joiner, CSC, joined the Air Force in 1985 and became an aeronautical engineer, project manager and teacher over a 30 year career before joining the University of New South Wales in 2015 as a senior lecturer in test and evaluation (T&E). He has since authored research articles and/or presented on Australian T&E concerning: preview de-risking, cybersecurity, integration assurance, the F35-aircraft, Australia’s future submarine, and use of design of experiments (DOE). From 2010 to 2014 he was the Director-General of Test and Evaluation for the Australian Defence Force where he was awarded a Conspicuous Service Cross. Dr Joiner has an MSc in Aerospace Systems Engineering with Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, a PhD in Calculus Education and a Masters of Management. In previous roles he was a design engineer for aircraft and missiles, a project engineering manager, a chief engineer for several aircraft types, and an air base commander. In 2009 he did wartime service in Baghdad for the Multi-National Force Iraq where he was awarded a United States Meritorious Service Medal for his work developing drawdown plans. He is a Certified Practising Engineer and a Certified Practising Project Director.

Upcoming Meetings and Events

WELCOME TO SETE 2018

SETE 2018 is an annual conference organized by the System Engineering Society of Australia (SESA) and the Southern Cross Chapter of the International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA). The Theme for SETE 2018 is Unlocking the Future through Systems Engineering.

The conference is in the International Convention Centre Sydney, Australia on April 30, May 1st, and 2nd. All the conference details are available on the SETE 2018 Website: https://sete2018.com.au

Participants are encouraged to focus on the main theme, which may include several areas of interest, such as challenges met by to-day and to-morrow systems:

How can System Engineering deal with increasing amounts of engineering and testing data?

How can we identify and extract valuable parameters from terabytes and petabytes of data?

How can Artificial Intelligence systems quickly learn from this data?

Sponsors, visitors and participants are welcomed. Pease visit the website and we hope to see you there.