Dr. Dylan Schmorrow, Chief Scientist and Executive Vice President at Soar Technology Inc.
Soar Technology’s Chief Scientist and Executive Vice President, Dr. Dylan Schmorrow, has received the 2020 Discovery-Driven Pillar Award from Western Michigan University’s (WMU) College of Arts and Sciences and the 2020 Alumni Achievement Award from WMU’s Department of Psychology. These awards recognize his outstanding achievements after receiving his degrees from WMU. Dr. Schmorrow earned a bachelor’s degree from WMU majoring in both psychology and economics in 1989. He also earned multiple advanced degrees from WMU, including master’s degrees from both Psychology (1990) and Philosophy (1993) and a doctoral degree in Psychology (1993). WMU takes pride in being learner centered, discovery driven, and globally engaged. Dr. Schmorrow was selected by WMU’s Psychology Department faculty for exemplifying these pillars and for his remarkable contributions to society. He was also selected from this year’s 17 alumni awardees to be the winner of the College of Arts and Sciences Discovery-Driven Pillar Award. This award recognizes individuals who have excelled beyond the normal scope of achievement in their professional field through discovery driven endeavors.
After earning his Ph.D., Dylan was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy’s Medical Service Corps. His Navy career focused on creating, fostering, and leading innovation that dramatically accelerated the advancement of technology to hasten the transition of novel ideas to practical use. He retired in 2013 as a U.S. Navy Captain from the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he ensured national security challenges of today and tomorrow were effectively being met across the DoD research and acquisition community. At SoarTech, Dylan continues to be a leader in the advancement of a new generation of intelligent, autonomous, and collaborative robotic systems, unique human-machine teaming solutions, and application of AI technologies to enhance training, simulation, cybersecurity, decision-support, and medical capabilities. He also serves as an Editor of the Taylor and Francis Group’s Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Journal, as a Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Senior Fellow, and as an active member in several Industry and DoD societies and working groups.
Dylan is a prior recipient of WMU’s Alumni Achievement Award from the WMU Department of Philosophy, as well as the Naval Postgraduate School Distinguished Alumni Award, the Navy’s Top Scientists and Engineers Award, the U.S. Naval Flight Surgeon’s Sonny Carter Memorial Award, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s Kollmorgan Spirit of Innovation Award, and the U.S. Naval Aerospace Experiment Psychology Society’s Lilienthal Leadership, and ChatelierLifetime, Achievement Awards.
“It has been an honor to have Dylan working with me as part of SoarTech’s Executive Team for the past seven years. He’s been a valuable partner in advancing in our cognitive modeling and artificial intelligence technologies. As exemplified by these awards, Dylan brings great enthusiasm to everything he does and in constantly seeking out new ways to benefit society and further the education of himself and others at the company. I look forward to continuing to work closely with him in the years to come as we continue to implement SoarTech’s mission of developing human-centered artificial intelligence solutions for the military’s toughest problems together.” said Dr. Michael van Lent, SoarTech’s CEO and President.