UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. - The U.S. Air Force Academy has selected Natalie W. Crawford, Senior Fellow, RAND Corporation, and Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School, as the latest recipient of the Academy’s Thomas D. White National Defense Award.
Crawford has been a long-term supporter of the Air Force Academy and was instrumental in establishing an important long-term relationship between RAND and the Academy.
She has worked at RAND for more than 40 years, during which she served for nine years as vice president and director of RAND Project Air Force. She has deep, substantive technical and operational knowledge and experience in areas such as conventional weapons, attack and surveillance avionics, fighter and bomber aircraft performance, aircraft survivability, electronic combat, theater missile defense, force modernization, space systems and capabilities, and nonkinetic operations. She has been a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board since 1988, and was its vice chairman in 1990 and co-chairman from 1996 to 1999.
Crawford has also been a tireless advocate for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) as a critical component of our force development.
The Thomas D. White Award is presented annually to a U.S. citizen who has contributed significantly to U.S. national defense, according to the award's fact sheet. A plaque is displayed in Arnold Hall with names of annual winners, who in past years have included Bob Hope, Sen. Barry Goldwater, Dr. Condoleezza Rice and Sen. John Glenn.
A date for presentation of the T.D. White Award to its latest recipient has not been finalized.