{"689916":{"#nid":"689916","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Manuel J. Diaz","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: Manuel J. Diaz\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdvisor: Dr. Dimitri Mavris\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMilestone: PhD Thesis Final Examination (Defense)\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDegree Program: Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ETitle: An Approach to Developing Ontology-Based Epistemic Infrastructure for Early-Phase Architecting of Space Exploration Campaigns\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAbstract: NASA\u0027s Artemis Program, an ambitious space exploration campaign (SEC) to explore the Moon and Mars, is expected to grow to over 50 highly-coupled major acquisitions. Yet for the past 35 years, NASA\u0027s acquisition practices have been designated \u0022high-risk\u0022 by the GAO due to chronic cost overruns and schedule delays. A root cause analysis traces these outcomes to epistemic shortfalls in early-phase architecting: tacitness, ambiguity, manual data transfers, and inconsistencies in how architectural knowledge is represented, exchanged, and verified. To address these shortfalls, this dissertation introduces ontologies and semantic web technologies into early-phase campaign architecting to develop ontology-based epistemic infrastructure. A tailored methodology, SEC Ontology Development Methodology (SECODM), was formulated. Following it, a layered ontology ecosystem, SECO, was developed along with minimum viable infrastructure for development, verification, and deployment. An evaluation framework based on elegant systems theory was developed to assess these contributions. Three case studies demonstrated that the ontology and infrastructure address the identified root causes through formal knowledge representation, machine-readable interoperability, and automated consistency verification.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDate and time: 2026-05-04, 1pm ET\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ELocation: CoVE\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommittee:\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Dimitri Mavris (advisor), School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EProf. Daniel Scrage, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EProf. Thomas Gonzalez Roberts, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Bradford Robertson, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Michael Balchanos, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Stephen Edwards, NASA MSFC\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAn Approach to Developing Ontology-Based Epistemic Infrastructure for Early-Phase Architecting of Space Exploration Campaigns\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"An Approach to Developing Ontology-Based Epistemic Infrastructure for Early-Phase Architecting of Space Exploration Campaigns"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-04-21 17:07:20","changed_gmt":"2026-04-21 17:07:57","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-04T13:00:28-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-04T15:00:28-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-04T15:00:28-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-04 17:00:28","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-04 19:00:28","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-04 19:00:28","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"CoVE","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}