Aerospace Award

Award criteria

Purpose: The purpose of this award is to recognise a significant contribution over a period of at least 2-5 years to the NDT/CM/SHM community within the aerospace sector.

Eligibility: Nominees can be individuals or groups who have made a significant contribution to the NDT/CM/SHM community, either through R&D, technology innovation development or transfer, or by developing strategy leading to new technology development and exploitation, or by contribution to standards, or by facilitating significant change within the aerospace sector. Nominations can relate to a specific technology innovation or for contributions to a number of innovations, including those providing significant contributions in a support role. 

This is intended to recognise a contribution over a period of at least 2-5 years.

The proposer of the award should be a voting member of the Institute. If they are not, they will need to ensure the application is endorsed by an Institute voting member.

Details of the award: The award will consist of a certificate and free of charge registration at the Aerospace Event of that year, where the award will be presented. (For groups, only one person will be free of charge.)

Frequency: This award will be issued no more than once per year, but is not required to be issued should no one have been nominated or the Aerospace Committee does not feel any nomination meets the eligibility of the award. The award will be discussed at the final meeting of the year of the Aerospace Committee and finalised at the March meeting before the Aerospace Event.

Nomination arrangements: Nominations should be submitted by email to: karen.cambridge@bindt.org

Nominations for the award will be reviewed by the Aerospace Committee. If there is only one nomination, then the Aerospace Committee should vote to confirm whether the nomination is eligible and, if so, approve the award. 

If there is more than one nomination, then the entries should be sent for judging by a panel set up for the purpose. Four members of the panel are to be appointed by the Aerospace Committee. Each judge will be invited to score the entries on a point scale of 0 to 3 and send the scores to Karen Cambridge, who will total the scores, and the entry receiving the most points will be declared the winner. 
 
Awarding arrangements: The award will be made at the Aerospace Event (usually held in April) and will be awarded by the Chair of the Aerospace Committee. The winner will also be asked to issue a plenary-style short paper on the content of the award.

Committee: Aerospace Committee.

Winners

2022 winner: Jason Smith

The Aerospace Award for 2022 is awarded to Jason Smith.

Jason Smith is the CEO of Dolphitech Defense, working across the global defence market. He has in-depth pan-industry experience, having worked for the company for three years and covering a range of functional executive management roles in that time, including product management/development, sales, marketing and strategy.

Dolphitech is a pioneer in the next-generation ultrasonic technology for non-destructive testing (NDT). The company is recognised worldwide for high-quality ultrasonic NDT products, utilising unbeatable ultrasonic matrix imaging technology to inspect and detect damage, degradation and defects in mission-critical assets across various industries, with a leading position in the inspection of composite materials.

Jason is a senior executive with several degrees and accreditations and wide-ranging board-level experience in all aspects of profitable commercial growth, project execution and customer relationship development. Over the last two years he has used this expertise to drive the adoption of advanced ultrasonic testing (UT) techniques within the aerospace sector, achieving this within his previous role as Chief Commercial Officer at Dolphitech.

Dolphitech’s flagship product, the Dolphicam2, is a matrix array UT platform that has enabled a step change in NDT performance for aerostructures. The product has been certified for in-service use by Boeing and Airbus, unlocking a powerful new technique that offers phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT)-like images without the need for complex set-ups or focal law definition. Jason has been the key driver in pushing matrix array UT further in this direction by actively working towards approvals with both companies and ASTM International, to satisfy more inspection tasks and bring this new method to a broad user base.

Jason is always striving to improve the exposure of NDT within the broader aerospace sector. This has included his presentations at the UK Space Agency’s Business Horizons Tech Talk and Dolphitech exhibiting at non-NDT industry events such as Advanced Engineering, the Composites and Advanced Materials Expo (CAMX), Ignite Space, Sea-Air-Space and the UK Space Conference in the last year alone.

Before working at Dolphitech, Jason worked in senior management and engineering positions at Oceaneering Inspection, IMES Group, Cape plc, Stork and BAE Systems.