WASHINGTON, D.C. –
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) John Michopoulos, Ph.D., received the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award, April 23, for his service as a mechanical engineer and principal scientist for materials innovation in the Materials Science and Technology Division.
The Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award is awarded to civilian employees for service or contributions resulting in high value or benefits for the Navy and Marine Corps.
From June 1991 to April 2025, Michopoulos made significant contributions to Navy science and technology in theoretical, computational and experimental methodologies related to materials, structural platforms and autonomous systems.
“It’s an incredibly humbling honor. On one hand, it provides some validation that my time spent at NRL had a wider impact outside our lab and throughout the Navy and the R&D enterprise as it represents a recognition by my peers and supervising chain,” Michopoulos said. “On the other hand, it fails to recognize the fact that all the accomplishments attributed to me are not really my accomplishments alone, but of all those who taught me, inspired me and fought on my side for progress, discovery and innovation as well.”
Wielding 35 years of federal service, Michopoulos has conducted ground-breaking Navy relevant research in the areas of multiphysics and multiscale modeling and simulation including data-driven inverse and machine learning methods as well as multi axial robotic prototyping and testing for material characterization and qualification.
“These methods provided predictive capabilities, meta-computing and automated material characterization including multi-degree of freedom parallel robots for multiaxial testing,” said Materials Science and Technology Division Superintendent Dr. Virginia DeGiorgi, SES. “Dr. Michopoulos has made significant accomplishments which enhanced the Navy’s capabilities for high throughput material characterization, part qualification, and increased accuracy of the performance prediction of electromagnetic launchers, aviation and additively manufactured components and Naval platforms throughout their lifecycle.”
The focus of his research has been material and structural systems as well as materials processing related to protecting and optimizing performance and DOD platform design, qualification and life extension.
“He has demonstrated immense skill in the use of continuum coupled multiphysics modeling across multiple scales, first principles theory, data-driven physics-informed and physics-agnostic machine learning methodologies, reduced order modeling techniques and digital twins development, for materials performance, manufacturing processes and high throughput multi-axial robotic based experimentation,” DeGiorgi said.
Michopoulos shared a piece of wisdom to the next generation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math professionals.
“Always strive to identify a topic of research that you think is worthwhile pursuing even though nobody around you can see its value irrelevantly from what is fundable or in vogue,” he said. “Make sure that this topic or dream of yours scares you, because if it does not then it is not worth pursuing it. Then, invest effort on it and begin working on it continuously any time you have an opportunity in parallel with all the other efforts you have to work on.”
Michopoulos reflected on one of his most memorable moments at the lab.
“When our NRL 66.3 6-Degrees of Freedom, or DoF, robotic testing machine performed the first multiaxial testing campaign in the spring of 2011 in a manner that after we characterized the material behavior from these testing campaign our blind predictions fell within 1% from the experimental data,” he said. “The first true moment when a data-driven inverse problem solution led to development of intrinsically validated models from data collected from a machine we designed, prototyped and used that did not exist prior to this time.”
Michopoulos has received more than 80 honors, distinctions and awards from multiple organizations across the defense research ecosystem including the NRL, industry and international scientific and technical societies.
The Materials Science and Technology Division traces its lineage back to the Physical Metallurgy Division established in 1927. In 1978, the Materials Science and Technology Division was established to conduct basic and applied research in functional and structural materials and engage in exploratory and advanced development to generate new Navy technologies and defense capabilities.
“Dr. Michopoulos’ dedication and expertise have been instrumental in advancing the Navy’s technological edge by providing an avenue for improving platform sustainment and advancing operational effectiveness,” DeGiorgi said.
About the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
NRL is a scientific and engineering command dedicated to research that drives innovative advances for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps from the seafloor to space and in the information domain. NRL is located in Washington, D.C. with major field sites in Stennis Space Center, Mississippi; Key West, Florida; Monterey, California, and employs approximately 3,000 civilian scientists, engineers and support personnel.
For more information, contact NRL Corporate Communications at (202) 480-3746 or nrlpao@us.navy.mil. Please reference package number at top of press release.