Representing the three key elements – users, industry and academia - of the Undersea Defence community, the event's technical planning committee provides unique advice to organisers regarding the needs of their constituency and the upcoming trends being explored across the research base.
The committee assist in shaping the content of the conference ensuring it is relevant and fulfils the expectations of the wider community. Learn more about current members of the committee below.
UDT 2025 Committee Chair, Senior Advisor & Deputy Director
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI)
Senior Scientist
TNO, The Netherlands
Dr. S. Peter Beerens graduated in theoretical physics at the University of Amsterdam and received his PhD in 1995 from Utrecht University for his PhD research at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. In 1996 he joined the Acoustic sensor and sonar system group of TNO, which is part of the division Acoustics and Underwater Warfare. Currently he is senior scientist and programme manager.
Areas of interest
He has specialised in sonar signal processing and has worked on several topics related to low-frequency active sonar and sonar performance modelling. Currently, his main interests are in torpedo defence, submarine sensors and off-board sensors.
Scientific Director
NAVAL GROUP
Aymeric Bonnaud spent his first 25 years in the French Armament Corps in R&D projects for submarines. First Sonar designer and underwater systems teacher at ENSTA graduate school, he then managed the development of propulsion and weapons systems before joining the strategic marketing team of DCNS. He chaired at that time the NCOIC maritime IPT. He was deputy CTO for energy and underwater systems. He was director of the technological research Centre of Expertise for Mastering Information engineering, human factors and Signatures (CEMIS), before being appointed Scientific Director of the group.
Technical Authority
BAE Systems
Simon is a Technical Authority responsible for a range of products including Submarine Command Systems and integration of uncrewed systems in to command and combat systems. He has worked for BAE Systems for over 30 years with a career encompassing operational research, early concept and technology development, system architecture, systems engineering and engineering governance. He has worked closely with the government and industry customers and partners in the UK, Australia and many NATO nations.
Key Account Manager Maritime, Leonardo UK
Iain joined Leonardo Electronics Division (LED) as the KAM Maritime in July 2022 post a 37- year Royal Navy career. He commanded two submarines, HMS TIRELESS and ASTUTE and was appointed OBE in March 2008 for his leadership during an under-ice emergency in TIRELESS. He had a 2-year exchange tour 2001-03 with the USN in COMSUBDEVRON 12 in New London, Ct and is one of few RN officers who has passed both the UK Submarine Command Course and the USN equivalent. Iain worked in MoD Jt Capability 07-09, Submarine Programmer 09-10, Deputy COMSUBNATO 14-16, Stratcom Jt User 16-18 and was Captain Submarine Sea and Shore Training 18-21. He was awarded Charter Master Mariner status in October 2022
His Leonardo role involves working closely with the Royal Navy to identify and shape capability opportunities. He provides SME input to all lines of business and provides campaign support to major maritime programmes. Iain is also lead for AUKUS.
Iain quite happily takes the lead on the operational side of ASW within the UDT Committee. Working with presenters to prepare is a most enjoyable and enlightening task. Experiencing the interaction between them and the audience at UDT makes it all worthwhile.
Areas of Interest:
Crewed ASW operations and capabilities | Autonomy
Director, Advansys Solutions
Peter graduated in Electronics from the University of Manchester followed by a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the Open University. He has worked in the Maritime sector in various engineering and technical roles for over 44 years. During this time, he has been a technical leader for the development of several large and complex active and passive ASW Sonar systems. He has previously led a number of UK MoD/Dstl research programmes, frequently working with academia and SME’s on innovative future technology solutions.
Areas of interest
Sensors & Processing with a particular interest in AI.
Associate Director of Maritime Advanced Technology
Raytheon
At Raytheon, Dr. Cipolla serves as Associate Director for Advanced Technology, Maritime, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. He currently leads Raytheon’s efforts for the hull structure, signatures, sensors and cybersecurity for a new submersible, and also leads acoustic and multiphysical efforts for several undersea programs.
Dr. Cipolla is recognized as an expert in computational mechanics for wave propagation and dynamics, particularly for shock wave and structural-acoustic issues related to subsea systems, with over 30 years’ experience in the development and application of physics- and data-driven methods in these areas. He has been a key contributor to advances in underwater shock and implosion analysis, metamaterials for acoustic cloaking, infinite elements for computation of submerged structure dynamics, analytical methods for optimization, simulation of flank array sonars, and other programs related to undersea systems. Dr. Cipolla has roughly 100 patents, presentations and publications derived from his expertise in the dynamics of mechanical systems and methods of robust simulation in applications. Dr. Cipolla has contributed several invited papers to the Acoustical Society of America, the US National Conference on Computational Mechanics, and to the Shock and Vibration Symposia.
Consultant Architect - Royal Navy: Underwater Battlespace
Matthew Gleed, Chartered Engineer and Underwater Systems & C4I specialist, from BAE Systems Digital Intelligence in the UK is currently employed client-side in the Royal Navy as a Consultant Architect in the Navy Command HQ, within the Underwater Battlespace team; consulting on technology, strategy and innovation for UK and International projects. 20 years working on a wide range of research and development activities for underwater defence and technology programmes covering submarines, strategic systems and special projects; predominantly working in industry but including in government delivering collaborative projects as well as sea trials activities in the UK, US and European submarine programmes.
Head of Product Management Submarines
thyssenkrupp Marine Systems
Born 1962; studied Communications Engineering at the German Armed Forces Helmut-Schmidt University in Hamburg, gained his Diploma as Communications Engineer in 1985. Served as an Officer in several positions of the German Air Force in the reconnaissance branch.
Professional background:
In 1993 Mr. Heizmann-Bartels joined Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG which became part of thyssenkrupp Marine Systems GmbH in 2013, after gaining experience as an Engineer in submarine Combat Systems and in various leading positions he became in 2007 Senior Vice President of Combat Systems, Logistics and R&D of Naval Surface Ship Department TKMS Blohm & Voss in Hamburg.
Mr. Heizmann-Bartels became 2009 Head of Submarine Engineering in Kiel. In 2014 he took over the Technical Director position in a major export program.
In February 2020, Mr. Heizmann-Bartels became Head of Product Management Submarines at thyssenkrupp Marine Systems in Kiel.
Senior Systems Engineer
Atlas Elektronik GmbH
Dr. Jörg Hurka works as a systems engineer at the Submarine Systems Department of ATLAS ELEKTRONIK GmbH, Bremen, Germany. He is a member of the UDT Technical Programme Committee since 2011.
Business Development Manager, Undersea Division
Lockheed Martin
Tito Dua served 23 years in the US Navy on surface ships. He spent the majority of his time in the Western Pacific. After retirement from the USN in 2007 he took a Business Development position with Lockheed Martin Manassas Undersea Division, marketing and selling Submarine combat and weapons control systems to the International (outside the US) market.
Head, Engineering and Information Technology
Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE)
NATO Science and Technology Organisation (STO)
Dr Alain Maguer got his PhD in underwater acoustics and signal processing in 1986 from the University of Lyon in France. He has been working in the maritime domain for around 30 years. After his PhD, for 15 years, he worked as a signal processing scientist in Thales and the NURC and was also in charge for three years of the research team in Thales Australia. From 2002, He led both technical manager and project manager positions in the fields of Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Mine Warfare and Maritime Security. He came back to CMRE in 2007 where he is currently the Head of Engineering and Information Technology Division at CMRE. His fields of interest and expertise are ASW, mine warfare, maritime security, underwater acoustics and signal processing, autonomous vehicles, underwater communication, gliders and towed arrays, scientific IT networks and data management.
Director, AtebTec Ltd
Jeff graduated in Maritime Technology, and has spent 40 years working in the maritime domain on projects across the globe. His initial roles focused on research and development projects in hydrodynamics and naval architecture, involving both theoretical and experimental work into vehicle hydrodynamics, propulsor design and towed systems.
Since that time he has played a significant role in the integration of payload systems into a number of platform (surface ships and submarines) programmes, with an involvement in 6 different first of class submarine designs and a number of surface ship programmes. Alongside these platform programmes he has contributed to a large number of maritime R&D projects. In his current role as an Independent Consultant, he is involved with a number of organisations, from small startups to large companies, helping them grow their business globally.
Naval Advisor
Clarion Events
A Naval professional with over 35 years’ experience at Sea, on Operations and in Headquarters roles, Adrian Pierce qualified as an Anti-submarine Warfare officer and specialist Navigator. He commanded a Mine Counter-measures Vessel and Frigates at Sea and had Staff roles at sea and ashore, including in Joint and NATO Staffs. Since his last command at Sea, he has had Joint and Maritime roles predominantly in leading warfare training and operational planning, where he was responsible for assimilating the cross-government demand for the Navy and programme delivery across all Maritime Assets including Ships, Submarines, Aircraft and Marines. Upon leaving the Royal Navy he has worked as a maritime consultant working in areas that have included Maritime Domain Awareness.
Chief Technology Officer, Sensors and Processing
ATLAS ELEKTRONIK UK Ltd
James (Jim) is Chief Technology Officer for Atlas Elektronik UK Ltd with over 35 years in defence R&D and systems development. After graduating with a degree in Physics he started his career working on the development of ASW avionics systems before moving onto submarine sonars. In the early 90s he moved to the MoD research labs specialising in mine warfare. This lead to development of simulation and modelling tools, novel mine sweeping and mine hunting systems and signature management systems with QinetiQ and Atlas Elektronik UK. In 2014 he became CTO, after a brief spell leading the Operations Division he returned to the CTO role in 2021.
Acoustic Specialist, Thales UK
Hannah has worked in Underwater Acoustics for over 10 years predominately in acoustic sensors and materials. She joined the UDT committee in 2023.
In Water Engineering Programme Lead, Babcock Nuclear
Ivan Stace CEng ChPP MSc MA MAPM MCGI FIET (Capt Royal Navy retired)
Ivan is a former Naval Officer and submariner and has seen extensive service in Attack Submarines. Following a successful career in the UK MOD, which included sponsoring Attack Submarine design and construction, he has joined the Nuclear Sector in Babcock.
Initially leading the planning for HMS VICTORIOUS’s refit in Devonport, he is now focused on improving Babcock’s approach to In Water Engineering and growing its innovative capability.
Ivan has been a key member of the UDT committee since 2018, was the chair of UDT 24 in London and his key areas of interest include: Submarine design, construction and through life support; Underwater sensor systems; Submarine combat systems, weapons and countermeasures; Autonomous systems; Protection of undersea critical national infrastructure; Innovation and capability development.
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Publications (public domain)
Submarine Support – A Tale of Two Worlds, UDT 24
Future Submarines & Technology Director
Babcock International Group
Nigel considers himself very fortunate to have worked all his career in the underwater systems arena and to have done so with insightful people, on interesting and demanding projects when invention & experiment were seen as essential activities. His involvement has spanned high level concept and analysis work (as Project Lead) to the management of super-specialist teams and the direction of operational and material support for submarines at Chief Engineer level.
Fundamentally an engineer with a background in the thermodynamics and fluid mechanics of powerplants and high speed propulsion, his work responsibilities have included the definition of novel underwater vehicles and their operational integration. At Marconi Underwater Systems in the 1980s he was technical lead for very early investigations into AUVs where the issues were ‘what could and should an autonomous vehicle be asked to do’ as much as how could it be done.
Nigel is the Future Submarines & Technology Director at Babcock International Group where he is involved in future design and technology planning and in external consultancy. He is a Fellow of both the IMechE and RINA and author of numerous papers including many presented at UDT.
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – UK Ministry of Defence
Tim is part of the Underwater Effects Team at the UK MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) based in Hampshire. He joined there around twenty years ago and worked on underwater acquisition support including the ASTUTE programme. A wide variety of underwater projects followed and now he mostly provides advice and review to a wide range of activities across the breadth of underwater science and technology within the MoD and with industry.
Prior to joining DSTL he served in the Royal Navy for over twenty years as a Navigator, Anti-Submarine Specialist and then a variety of Staff roles including Northwood Operations and acquisition projects at Abbey Wood in Bristol.
Being part of the UDT Technical Committee is an enjoyable experience, providing an excellent opportunity to meet new people and catch-up with old friends whilst contributing something back to the underwater community.
Outside of work he spends time dismantling and attempting to reassemble a fifty year old motorbike. His wife seems okay with the time spent in the garage.
Areas of Interest
Extant and emergent underwater related science and technology.
Particularly innovative opportunities related to submarine and deep sea operations, sensors, stealth, effectors and communications.
As an exhibitor, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with leaders and influencers in the undersea defence. Make a stand enquiry.
