Dr. Bruce Danly

Director of Research

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory [NRL]

Dr. Bruce Danly was selected as the Director of Research for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in December 2016, and has been in various roles at NRL since 1995. He was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in February 2008. From 2008 through 2016, Dr. Danly served as Superintendent, Radar Division. The division is responsible for basic and applied research and development in radar and related sensors for the Navy and Marine Corps. The division also provides support to the Navy acquisition community and to the operational Navy on quick-reaction tasks.
Prior to his appointment to the SES, Dr. Danly served as Branch Head, Microwave Technology Branch, in NRL’s Electronics Science and Technology Division (ESTD) from 2006-2008. This branch carries out R&D on both wide-bandgap and narrow-bandgap semiconductor devices and passive and active microwave components. Dr. Danly originally entered government service in 1995 as Head of the High Power Devices Section, Vacuum Electronics Branch, in the ESTD. From 1995-2006, he led a group which developed high-power millimeter-wave technology for application to radar, communications, and electronic warfare systems.

He represented the U.S. Navy to the Technology Cooperation Program Intelligence Surveillance Tracking Acquisition and Reconnaissance Technical Panel 2 on RF Sensing from 2010-2016, and was appointed chairman of the panel in 2016. He also served as a U.S. at-large member to the NATO Sensors and Electronics Technology Panel from 2014-2016.

Dr. Danly received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Haverford College in 1978, and a doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. His thesis work was in the field of quantum electronics. Prior to his arrival at NRL in 1995, Dr. Danly was on the research staff at the MIT Plasma Fusion Center, as a research scientist from 1983-1992, and as a Principal Research Scientist from 1992-1995, where he worked on high power microwave and millimeter wave sources for fusion, accelerator, and defense applications.

Dr. Danly was elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 2003 for his work on millimeter-wave sources. His other awards include the Robert L. Woods award from the Advisory Group on Electron Devices of the Office of Secretary of Defense in 1999 for leadership in the vacuum electronics community, and the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation as a member of the NRL research staff from September 11, 2001 to 2006. Dr. Danly was awarded a group award in 2002 for January 2017 development of the WARLOC High-Power Millimeter-Wave Radar, and received NRL Technology Transfer Awards in 2000 and 2003. Dr. Danly is a member of the American Physical Society and IEEE, and served on the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems (AES) Radar Systems Panel from 2008-2013. He has published more than seventy papers in scientific and technical journals.
January 2017

Event Participation