1423 Powhatan St., Suite 1
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Phone (703) 836-6727
Fax (703) 836-7491
Email: asnehq@navalengineers.org

 

ASNE is the leading professional engineering society for engineers, scientists and allied professionals who conceive, design, develop, test, construct, outfit, operate and maintain complex naval and maritime ships, submarines and aircraft and their associated systems and subsystems.  ASNE also serves the educators who train the professionals, researchers who develop related technology, and students who are preparing for the profession.  Society activities provide support for the U.S. Navy; U.S. Coast Guard; U.S. Marine Corps; U.S. Merchant Marine and U.S. Army.

ASNE is the seventh oldest technical society in the United States.  It was founded in 1888 by a group of naval engineering pioneers, most of them officers of the U.S. Navy's Engineering Corps, who sought a unified approach to their profession in order to make the most of new advances in technology. The purposes of ASNE are:           

  • to advance the knowledge and practice of naval engineering in public and private applications and operations,
  • to enhance the professionalism and well-being of members, and
  • to promote naval engineering as a career field.

For 125 years, the Society’s objectives have been strengthened and preserved to meet the changing needs of a time-honored profession. Today ASNE conducts a variety of technical meetings and symposia, publishes the highly regarded Naval Engineers Journal and a number of other technical proceedings and publications, and fosters professional development and technical information exchange through technical committees, local section activities and cooperative efforts with government organizations and other professional societies.

The Society's annual meeting, ASNE Day, is typically held in February of each year in the Washington, DC, area. The meeting features major addresses by high level industry and government leaders and panel discussions by leading members of the profession.  It also includes presentation and discussion of technical papers on a variety of timely naval engineering topics, presentation of the Society's prestigious annual awards and a large exposition with government and industry exhibits covering the full spectrum of naval engineering technology. ASNE Day is highlighted by the Society’s annual Honors Gala, attended by hundreds of executives and senior managers from both government and industry.

Our website is designed to not only serve our members, but also to support scholars, students and others interested in the varied field of naval engineering.  We welcome your suggestions on ways we can improve your experience. 

Dr. Norman L. Owsley

Award: Gold Medal Award
Year: 1996
Recipient:
Dr. Norman L. Owsley
Reason:
For his significant contribution to naval engineering as set forth in the following:

Dr. Owsley is an internationally recognized expert in acoustic detection and processing systems who has made many original and innovative scientific and technical contributions to the United States Navy’s signal processing capabilities. Realizing the adaptability of his important sonar-related work, he has ingeniously applied his defense related work to provide new and exciting capabilities in the field of medicine.

Dr. Owsley originated the concept of a Submarine Multiline Towed Array (SMLTA) which can be deployed and retrieved while submerged and underway. The SMLTA provides a large volumetric acoustic aperture working array which has demonstrated great potential for submarine applications and is a leading candidate for application to both new construction and backfit systems. As Chief Scientist for the SMLTA, Dr. Owsley’s original research has grown into a highly effective system which meets theoretical performance values and serves as a prime example of a successful multidiscipline project in the research, development, test and engineering community.

Dr. Owsley’s scientific work on the theory and implementation of advanced sonar array processing, adaptive filtering, and tracking systems has led to impressive performance enhancements to towed array sonar systems; and has paved the way for further improvements through application of massively parallel signal processing. Some of his developments are of such fundamental importance that they are being applied to phased array radars as well as sonars.

Having established an unsurpassed reputation for his scientific contributions to research in acoustics processing, Dr. Owsley turned his attention to a new challenge¾adapting his defense related work to more humanitarian uses. In a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement Dr. Owsley is leading research efforts to develop a multiple auscultation point space-time phonocardiography capability to detect and diagnose cardiovascular disease. The implications of a non-invasive capability to accurately detect or diagnose stenosed arteries, lesions, aneurysms, and other cardiovascular irregularities are of immense interest to the medical community.

During his remarkable career, Dr. Owsley has made important contributions to the Nation’s defense through his original research on signal processing. His work has been instrumental in developing enhanced acoustic detection and processing capabilities which will afford the U.S. Navy a meaningful advantage in undersea warfare technology well into the next century.

Significantly, Dr. Owsley has also taken his life’s work in the defense realm and modified it for the benefit of mankind.

The value of Dr. Owsley’s contributions to the scientific community, the Navy, and the Nation are truly worthy of the recognition accorded by this prestigious Gold Medal Award for 1996.