WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 18, 2008) -- The 26th Army Science Conference may be a few months away, but plans are already well underway for the event, a biennial gathering of Army scientists and the latest technologies revolutionizing the battlefield and the homefront.
Dr. John A. Parmentola, director for research and laboratory management for the U.S. Army, conducted a phone interview Monday with online journalists to discuss this year's conference, where the theme is "Transformational Army Science and Technology - Harnessing Disruptive S & T for the Soldier."
Participants and panelists include speakers and scientists from across the globe.
Dr. Parmentola briefly discussed some of the topic areas and panelists, including a special focus this year on women in science.
"What we've also decided at the Army Science Conference is to showcase eminent women in science," Parmentola said. "So on the second, third, and fourth days, the lead speakers on those days are all women of significant reputation in the fields of research"
Parmentola also touched on the seven key topics that will be addressed in the conference. The seven research and technology areas that are the focus are:
- Autonomous systems
- Biotechnology
- Immersive technology
- Nanotechnology
- Network science
- Neuroscience
- Quantum information science
Parmentola briefly touched upon each of the topics before opening to questions, focusing finally on the growing interest in network science.
"We traditionally have thought about networks as just being human engineered networks," Parmentola said. "And of course the Army has a strong interest in networks, largely because the Army believes that networks are a future transformational technology for our force.
"However, in addition to human engineered networks, what we're recognizing is that networks are much more pervasive, and the traditional thinking about networks is that it has to do with communications and radios and waveforms and things like that, but there are other dimensions to networks which involve biologically evolved systems, and these range everywhere from what's going inside cells to the networking of cells to form tissue, the networking of tissue to form organs, and of course the networking of organs to form organisms like humans."
Parmentola focused on the fact that all of the technology developed and research conducted has direct correlations back to the Soldiers who support the Army mission, noting that wide varieties of advancements have taken place in recent years to improve Soldier quality of life.
The conference call concluded with Parmentola's encouragement for interested individuals to attend the conference to see how advancements that seem like science fiction are reality for today's Soldiers.
"I appreciate the opportunity to talk with all of you," said Parmentola "I would encourage all of you, if you want even better answers to those questions and actually see what I'm talking about, the best place to go to do it is the Army Science Conference in Orlando (Fla.) December 1st through 4th, and I would welcome all of you and appreciate the opportunity to talk with you more and introduce you to a lot of the exciting people we have working on these things within the Army."
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