Dr. Tanju, is a Highly Qualified Expert, serving as the Command Data Officer and Technical Advisor for Data Analytics, Air Combat Command, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. He is responsible for establishing the ACC data governance and strategy, and advancing the development of qualitative and quantitative technologies in support of warfighter capabilities. He advises the Commander of ACC on the growth of data science and digital engineering technologies and defines ACC investments in data science and engineering capabilities.
Prior to serving at ACC Dr. Tanju served as the first Deputy Chief Data Officer of Federal Student Aid, US Department of Education. He was responsible for enabling data transparency/access, statistical research and modeling, and building an enterprise data warehouse on a big data platform. He worked closely with OMB, Treasury, White House Domestic Policy Council and the Council of Economic Advisors, and the Federal Reserve Board leading the quarterly reviews of the $1.4T/41M borrower student aid portfolio. He created the FSA strategy for access to student aid data which led to the White House announcement on the Advancing Insights through Data (AID) pilot for providing access to FSA data. He implemented role-based access & data tokenization to protect all PII of borrowers within the EDW becoming the first federal agency to tokenize data.
Dr. Tanju began his career at the Naval Air Development Center as an electronics engineer developing and testing satellite, inertial and geophysical navigation systems. At SPAWAR/NAVAIR he developed the architecture, and demonstrated the ability of naval aircraft to file and fly GPS non-precision approaches in controlled airspace for the first time and led efforts to field advanced GPS Anti-Jam User Equipment on Navy and Marine Corps aircraft, ships and submarines managing a budget of $600M. Dr. Tanju supported Operation Iraqi Freedom by assisting the fleet with new tactics, training, and procedures for navigation that employed GPS user equipment on Navy TACAIR/PGMs.
Following ICAF, Dr. Tanju served as the first Principal Integration Program Manager for In-Service Aircraft Carrier C4I Integrations. He was embedded into NAVSEA where he managed all C4I integrations on Refueling Complex and Overhaul (RCOH), and Nimitz class New Construction carriers with a budget of $300M. He led the strategic PEO Carriers lean six sigma effort to plan and implement the C4I design budget strategy for nuclear carriers starting with CVN 71 RCOH resulting in $8M of repeatable validated savings for all future RCOHs.
After receiving his PhD, Dr Tanju did his post-doctoral work at the Office of Naval Research as the principal Investigator to develop, build and demonstrate a system to locate & track personnel and high value assets onboard ships titled Precise At-Sea Ship System for Indoor Outdoor Navigation (PASSION). PASSION uses wireless networks (Wi-Fi), Micro electromechanical sensors (MEMS), GPS, QR codes, Low Energy Blue Tooth, apriori RF and floor maps, and intelligent sensor fusion algorithms using smart-phone technology demonstrated for the first time using fleet representative configuration on an aircraft carrier (CVN-77).
Dr. Tanju was selected as the first Deputy Program Manager for the Naval Enterprise Networks (NEN) and the first technical director for PEO EIS. He was responsible for leading the business transformation of the world's largest previously outsourced single provider global network (Navy Marine Corps Intranet) to a segmented service delivery model with government ownership, and Command & Control designated as the Next Generation Enterprise Network, ACAT IAM. Dr. Tanju led a team of over 400 government, military, and industry personnel with an annual budget of $1.5B for managing, sustaining and the transition of the network that serves 700,000 sailors, marines, and civilians at 3000+ locations worldwide.
In 2012, Dr. Tanju was selected to lead a CNO directed effort to develop an end-to-enterprise business architecture with common data standards and policies, and business intelligent decision aids for delivering information to the highest levels of the Navy for rapid and efficient decision making. He developed visualizations for DON spares, Annual Operating Cost, Ship Maintenance, Business IT, and total force expenditures and compared against planned and budgeted dollars that resulted in driving operational and programmatic changes in those focus areas.
EDUCATION
1987 Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland
1999 Master of Science Degree in Industrial Engineering, Pennsylvania State University
2001 Strike Leader and Attack Training Syllabus (SLATS), Naval Strike & Air Warfare Center (as CIV observer)
2004 Master of Science Degree in National Resource Strategy, Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF)
2009 Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Systems Engineering, George Washington University
2010 Executive Program Managers Course (PMT402), Defense Systems Management College
2010 Defense Leadership and Management Program
CAREER CHRONOLOGY
1. 1987-1996, Navigation Systems Engineer, Naval Air Development Center
2. 1996-1999, Assistant Program Manager for Advanced Navigation, SPAWAR/Air 1.0 (dual reporting)
3. 1999-2004, Assistant Program Manager for GPS Modernization, PEO C4I/Air 1.0 (dual reporting)
4. 2004-2009, Principal Integration Program Manager for C4ISR, PEO Carriers/PEO C4I (dual reporting)
5. 2009-2012, Principal Investigator, Office of Naval Research (ADDU)
6. 2009-2012, Deputy Program Manager, NGEN/Naval Enterprise Networks, PEO EIS, DON
7. 2011-2012, Technical Director, PEO EIS, DON
8. 2012-2015, Director, Enterprise Business Intelligence, ASN FM&C, DON
9. 2015-2021, Deputy Chief Data Officer, Federal Student Aid, DoED
AWARDS AND HONORS
2015 Navy Superior Civilian Service Award
2015 ASN FM&C Letter of Appreciation
2014 Vice Chief of Naval Operations Letter of Appreciation
2012 PEO EIS Letter of Appreciation
2010 DoD/USD AT&L Value Engineering Award
2009 Space and Naval Warfare System Command (SPAWAR) Innovation Award
1996 Navy Exemplary Achievement Award
CERTIFICATIONS
Program Management Level III
Systems Engineering Level III
ACADEMIC HISTORY
Instructor, Cornell University, eCornell Certificate Programs (Systems Eng, Programming), 2020-Present
Adjunct Professor & PhD advisor, Dissertation Committee, GWU, School of Engineering and Applied Science, 2010-2020
(Current as of July 2021)