Director Emphasizes Imagination in Research

[21 September 2006 - U.S. Department of Defense Transformation News] Dan Marren spoke to scientists about basic research, collaboration and relationships, and the use of imagination to achieve great possibilities. ... It would have been understandable for a speaker to appear rattled addressing hundreds of world-renowned scientists gathered in Atlanta recently for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Joint Program Review. Dan Marren, director of the Arnold Engineering Development Center’s White Oak, Md. facility, after all, had only 45 minutes to prepare a 30-minute speech shortly after he received word his boss could not make it. ... He spoke to scientists brought together by Air Force Office of Scientific Research program managers to review five major Air Force basic research portfolios. Speaking to experts who spent the week discussing such topics as physical mathematics and plasma aerodynamics could affect anyone’s composure – anyone except Marren. His presentation focused on three topics which, he said, are of critical importance to the scientific community – basic research, collaboration and relationships, and use of imagination to achieve great possibilities. The thread that weaves these concepts together is vision. More