Trung T. Pham, Ph.D.

Dr. Trung T. Pham is the FAA’s Chief Scientist and Technical Advisor (CSTA) for Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Machine Learning, supporting leadership in research and knowledge related to how AI & Machine Learning may be used in aviation systems, and how to evaluate integration of components based on AI & Machine Learning with aircraft software.

Dr. Pham joins the FAA with more than 35 years of software and AI experience. Before joining the FAA, Dr. Pham was at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado where he worked as an academic professor, teaching in the Department of Computer & Cyber Sciences, and conducting research &

development in AI & Machine Learning applications in for the US Air Force Cyberworx (Center of Innovation in Cyber Security) where he was granted the US Top Secret Security Clearance. Previously he taught Control Theory, AI, and Neural Networks at the University of Houston, and was a technical specialist and staff engineer at NASA Johnson Space Center working in the area of Automation & Robotics in the Space Station Program.

He also spent a stint at the University of Talca in Chile, South America as a visiting professor and director of the Center of Research in Information Technology, teaching computer sciences, and directing two nationally sponsored R&D projects on product authentication with embedded double-encryption in RFID and data mining on the IoT authentication activities. While in Chile, he received the US State Department’s Fulbright Funding for a project on using swarm intelligence for coordinating a fleet of inexpensive drones to detect forest fire.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Pham was a Process Engineer at both Seiscom Delta United, and AMF GeoSpace, doing seismic signal processing for the oil exploration in the energy sector.