Carl E. Fossa

Dr. Carl E. Fossa is principal staff in the Communication Systems Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. An expert in tactical communication networks, Fossa has played key roles in helping the U.S. government understand how to leverage and adopt commercial communications technologies such as 5G. His research interests span inter-networking mobile, tactical, and wireless communication networks; mobile ad hoc network scalability and protocol performance; and network modeling and simulation.

Fossa began his career in 1987 as an active-duty officer in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, retiring after 21 years at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served in a range of tactical military and technical engineering positions, including operations officer during Operation Desert Shield/Storm and assistant professor of electrical engineering at West Point.

He joined Lincoln Laboratory in 2008 as a technical staff member in the Wideband Tactical Networking Group. His early work focused on enhancing Army tactical communications and developing a network emulation test bed that helped inform Army networking decisions. Fossa was promoted to assistant leader of the group in 2012 and to associate leader and leader of the Tactical Networks Group in 2015 and 2016, respectively. As group leader, Fossa significantly grew the advanced tactical radio prototyping portfolio. This growth included the development and transition of communication and networking technologies now part of the future Department of the Air Force (DAF) Battle Network architecture.

Fossa was formerly a consultant to the Defense Science Board and is now a consultant to the Army Science Board, for which he is co-chair of a Data-Centric Command and Control Study. He is part of the IEEE Military Communications (MILCOM) Steering Committee and was technical co-chair of the 2023 IEEE MILCOM Conference. At the Laboratory, Fossa belongs to the Lincoln Laboratory Veterans Network (LLVETS) employee resource group and the Group Leader Forum.

For his service, Fossa has received multiple honors from the U.S. Army: the Meritorious Service Medal (1996, 2006, and 1996), Commendation Medal (1991, 1993, and 1994), and Achievement Medal (1990). He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu engineering honor societies. Fossa holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (1987), Air Force Institute of Technology (1998), and Virginia Polytechnic and State University (2002), respectively.