Dr. Mikel Miller

It is with great pleasure that the National Defense Industrial Association’s Integrated Precision Warfare Division presents the Richard H. Johnson Award to Dr. Mikel M. Miller.

The Johnson Award recognizes outstanding personal technical achievement resulting in significant contribution to precision strike systems. The impact of Dr. Miller’s many excellent contributions have certainly been felt in the precision strike community. Dr. Miller is a significant technical leader with over 38 years of experience in executing, researching, developing, testing, integrating, and implementing state-of-the-art Position, Navigating, and Time (PNT) hardware and software systems. 

Like Dick Johnson, for whom the award is named, Dr. Miller has developed a professional and personal career path focused on warfighter technology-related research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E), and education. His contributions have made a significant impact on warfighter operations requiring precision engagement. Dr. Miller has over 34 years of United States Air Force service, including 20 as an Active Duty Officer and 14 as a Civil Servant.

Dr. Miller has led technology-advancing efforts for a wide range of U.S. and Allied warfighters. Like Dick, he is recognized as a mentor, by generously sharing his insight, and leading, motivating, teaching, advising scientists and engineers. He has developed and taught courses on control, inertial navigation systems (INS), and GPS/INS integration to Air Force, Army and International Graduate Students.

His career has enhanced the operations of the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and a host of allied nations. He has supported precision strike systems in the multi-service environment as a member of the PNT Science and Technology Roadmap Development Team. That team created the DoD’s first comprehensive roadmap to guide DoD Science &Technology across the services by bringing the PNT community together to open communication and reduce R&D duplication. 

Dr. Miller’s technical contributions are wide-reaching. He has been the United States’ lead representative and PNT expert on four NATO Research and Technology Organization (RTO) technical teams all focused on improving PNT capabilities, robustness, and resiliency especially in challenging PNT environments. And he has now been tasked by NATO to lead a new RTO entitled “NATO PNT Open System Architecture & Standards to Ensure PNT in NAVWAR Environments”. Dr. Miller is currently leading the USAF’s Resilient-Embedded GPS/INS (R-EGI) program which hopes to replace the DoD’s proprietary EGIs with a DoD-owned Open Architecture that will enable technology insertion and refresh by the DoD and 3rd party developers throughout the life-cycle of the program. 

Because of these contributions, NDIA’s Integrated Precision Warfare Division is proud to name Dr. Mikel M. Miller as the recipient of the thirteenth annual Richard H. Johnson Technical Achievement Award and the 2021 Johnson Trophy.