Modeling and Simulation Representatives from ODU to Speak at Cambridge

Michael McGinnis, the executive director of Old Dominion University's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC), will lead a seminar at Cambridge University's Institute for Manufacturing in the England next month together with Eric Weisel, an ODU modeling and simulation (M&S) doctoral program graduate who now owns an M&S business in eastern Virginia.

The appearance is part of the two men's participation in a Virginia trade mission to England Oct. 6-10 led by the state's Secretary of Commerce and Trade Patrick Gottschalk.

The Cambridge announcement of the seminar, which will be Oct. 9, notes that the visiting experts have helped to forge a "leading U.S. hub in Virginia's Hampton Roads region, known as 'Sim City,'" for "simulation, modeling and virtual environments." Since its founding in 1997, VMASC has been a catalyst for the development of an M&S sector in Hampton Roads that generates as much as $600 million a year in economic activity.

McGinnis and Weisel will discuss a wide range of M&S applications in transportation, defense, medicine, manufacturing and training.

McGinnis, a retired brigadier general who was a leader in M&S during his Army career, took the top job at VMASC in 2006. Weisel has a Ph.D. in M&S engineering from ODU and is an adjunct professor for the university in M&S and engineering management. He founded and leads WernerAnderson, Inc., a company on the Peninsula that provides M&S services in research, analysis, development and support.