Service and Mentorship Guide Navigation Expert

For Jimmie Lee Davis Jr., any successes he’s enjoyed have come from following his head and his heart. From academic and playing-field prowess to engineering expertise and a fulfilling family life, he credits his inner sense of direction for always placing him where he can make a difference.

It only makes sense, then, that Davis has received national recognition for his contributions to PNT—a field that the nation’s critical infrastructure sectors rely on to protect energy services, healthcare, utilities, and transportation systems from vulnerabilities. 

Though MITRE has worked in PNT for decades, it’s still a growing, evolving field, Davis says. “At MITRE, we have the ability to leverage our talent to apply up-to-the-minute system engineering skills, signal processing technology, data analytics, and field testing expertise to help solve complex national problems.”

Equally important to Davis? Creating a work environment that empowers his team to ask hard questions, take strategic risks, and continue to press forward on the PNT frontier. As critical as it is to employ technical knowledge and innovation, he says, mentoring and empowering emerging technical leaders strengthens the industry for the future.

Navigating a Career

In fact, a mentor was responsible for attracting Davis to MITRE when he was on the hunt for his first engineering job. Walter Kuklinski—then a senior principal signal processing engineer at MITRE and a University of Massachusetts–Lowell instructor—would “always call me to the front of the class,” Davis recalls. “Interesting conversations led to a friendship, and he invited me to visit MITRE.” Although Davis imagined his intention was to complete his doctorate then “go somewhere warm,” he was drawn in by MITRE’s work and mission in Bedford—and its people.

“I graduated in May 2000, got married in July 2000, and started to work in August 2000,” Davis says. “And I’ve never left MITRE. Every day when I go to work, if I listen more than I talk, I learn a lot. It’s been a beautiful journey.”

Davis and his team provide Assured PNT solutions for the U.S. Army that allow the warfighter to complete operations in environments where PNT signals of interest are impacted by intentional and/or natural forces. He oversees a team that assesses, analyzes, models and simulates, and tests future PNT systems and operational radio frequency (RF) environments for his sponsor.

“We do analysis, design test environments, then we’re out in the field testing the prototype systems for the government,” he says. “We’ve been all over the country because there are so many variables—at Fort Huachuca or White Sands Missile Range, for example, we’re impacted by terrain, foliage, distances, and weather.”

Going forward, Davis says he may be most excited by the advent of applying PNT technology and expertise in the lunar space. 

“Everything we’ve done on Earth and learned about PNT, we can apply to problems on the moon,” he says. “The notion that the moon could be used as a waystation or jump-off point to travel is a challenging and exciting problem.”

Sharing Knowledge, Serving Others

Davis compares taking on MITRE sponsors’ unique PNT challenges to sport. “It’s like football,” he explains. “With every play and position, everything we do individually and as a team is to score and win.” 

He should know. Deemed “statistically the greatest quarterback in Morehouse College history” by the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame, Davis was setting records on the field while earning his undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics. He spent the long bus rides to and from games studying—and, true to his commitment to serving others, helping his teammates through calculus. 

“I don’t know anything different,” Davis says. “Not only is a tiger’s fur striped—so is its skin.”

Davis comes from a long line of community leaders; his grandparents were pillars of their 100-year-old Hialeah, Fla., community of Seminola. After desegregation, his father became the first Black male graduate of the formerly all-white Miami Springs Senior High School. 

Throughout high school, college, and postgraduate studies at Georgia Tech and UMass–Lowell, Davis pushed for outreach and advising programs. Upon relocating from Boston to Tallahassee in 2005, he was named to the Space Florida Board of Directors by then-Governor Jeb Bush. The organization aims to provide leadership and advocacy to strengthen Florida’s position in the civil and military space sectors. 

“It’s an absolute privilege to do the work I do, with people who make me excited to do it,” Davis says.