Ms. Jessica “STING” Peterson is a part-time Instructor Flight Test Engineer with ABSI Aerospace & Defense for the US Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) and a current Ph.D. student for the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University Nevada Reno. After attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in Mechanical Engineering, Jess began her career as a USAF Civil Service employee in 2005. During this time, she obtained her MS in Mechanical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School and attended USAF TPS as a civilian Flight Test Engineer, obtaining her MS in Flight Test Engineering.

She has over 19 years of flight test experience on fighter, bomber, and autonomous vehicles. As a graduate and instructor of USAF TPS, she has instructed hundreds of flight test and space test professionals, flown in over 40 different aircraft types with 600+ military flight hours (primarily the T-38, F-16, and C-12 aircraft), and directed hundreds of control room missions. The highlight of her career was when she got to shake the hand of a pilot whose life was saved by a system she helped develop and test: the F-16 Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System. Witnessing the operational impact and lifesaving capability of the Collier Award winning collision avoidance technology ignited her passion for autonomy and mixed human-machine decision-making, prompting her to return to graduate school and embark on a Ph.D. journey.