Werner Dahm, Air Force chief scientist for the past two years, is returning to academia, USAF officials announced Thursday. To replace him, the Air Force leadership has assigned Mark Maybury, who is currently executive director of Mitre Corporation’s information technology division in Bedford, Mass. Dahm came on as chief scientist in October 2008 after taking a leave of absence from the aerospace engineering faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to which he is now returning. During his two-year tenure, Dahm was the leading figure behind the Air Force’s recently issued Technology Horizons vision document that laid out the service’s science and technology priorities over the next decade.
The Air Force overall reduced its size by 120 aircraft in fiscal year 2021, but kept about the same number of fighter, bomber and attack aircraft, according to data supplied by the service. The F-35 fleet saw the biggest increase while the B-1B bomber fleet saw the largest decline.