Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

"Johns Hopkins APL is a not-for-profit university affiliated research center (UARC) that solves complex research, engineering, and analytical problems that present critical challenges to our nation. Our scientists, engineers, and analysts serve as trusted advisors and technical experts to the government, ensuring the reliability of complex technologies that safeguard our nation’s security and advance the frontiers of space. We also maintain independent research and development programs that pioneer and explore emerging technologies and concepts to address future national priorities." (Source: Public website, https://www.jhuapl.edu/.) JHU/APL is the nation’s largest university affiliated research center. 

James Spall is a member of the Principal Professional Staff at JHU/APL (highest of five categories of technical staff). Dr. Spall has worked in diverse areas within the fields of statistics and control systems, and has worked in applications areas such as defense systems and transportation systems. He has published  extensively on topics such as parameter estimation, adaptive control, small-sample data analysis, performance evaluation and testing, time series, optimization, and neural networks and he holds two U.S. patents for inventions in control systems (both licensed to the private sector). Dr. Spall has extensive experience leading and managing research and development projects. These projects include several funded by the U.S. Navy on advanced techniques for estimation in large-scale defense systems. The work in these projects involved the development of new statistical theory and the subsequent implementation in software and processing of actual system data. He has also been the principal investigator of many JHU/APL-funded Independent Research and Development projects. These projects represent basic research in the fields of statistics and control.

Article James Spall: Finding Order in the Random appears in a public profile of selected staff at JHU/APL (June 2012).