Matthew Walsh

The authors identify insights and best practices upon which the Air Force could draw to improve its nonrated technical training pipeline. The researchers examined three topics of interest identified by the Air Force: (1) how colleges and universities right-size their instructor corps, (2) best practices associated with supply chain management, and (3) approaches for developing a flexible instructor pool.

Air Force Special Warfare operators conduct physically and mentally challenging missions. For this career field, specialized assessment and selection of future operators is required. The authors examine the programs for assessing and selecting personnel for AFSPECWAR, identify job-relevant attributes, consider how these attributes should be weighted for candidate selection, and improve the accuracy of raters' evaluations of candidates.

Tasked with developing a new capability for U.S. Air Force human resources planners, the authors have developed an initial prediction prototype tool that can be used to alert decisionmakers of emerging problems and thus allow them enough time to consider adjusting accession and retention policies before shortages occur.

Air Force Special Warfare (AFSPECWAR) prioritizes rigorous assessment and selection to ensure operators possess the qualities needed for demanding missions. The authors evaluate the effectiveness of AFSPECWAR's process and recommend best practices.

The Department of the Air Force cannot confidently apply artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems to human resource management without an analytic framework to evaluate and augment their safety. The authors developed an analytic framework to measure and augment ML systems' safety. They then developed ML systems and exercised the framework with the examples of officer promotion and developmental education boards.

Most U.S. Air Force (USAF) medical personnel care for patients with ailments far less complex or urgent than the trauma-related injuries they would see in war, and the USAF must ensure that these personnel receive the training and experience they need for high-casualty environments. The authors present findings, recommendations, and a prototype framework to suggest readiness activities and policies that could be employed to prepare personnel for war.

The Department of the Air Force is working to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) systems for mission areas and support functions, including human resource management. The authors reviewed how private-sector organizations evaluate and select such projects and developed a framework for assessing business value, technical feasibility, and implementation complexity of possible ML projects to form a portfolio.

Shortlisted, Trillium Book Award for Poetry Raw, confessional, and often messy, Terrarium continues Matthew Walsh’s exploration of Queer identity and desire against the lonely highs and lows of depression and addiction. In this new collection, Walsh begins where their debut collection, These are not the potatoes of my youth, left off. Writing in their trademark conversational style, Walsh wanders from Toronto parkettes “with remnants of magnolia leaves” to California, “a long/black cocktail dress the night lights/amethyst and citrine against the arm/muscle of the sea,” their voice intimate and exposed, a whisper between friends or lovers. And then, when they ruminate on influences and themes as diverse as the poetry of Frank O’Hara and Gwendolyn MacEwen, the vagaries of Instagram, and the reimagination of Miss Havisham in a Toronto bathhouse, they offer readers the opportunity to think deeply or laugh loudly, reaching out to close the gap between us.

Amid increasing concerns about the current readiness assessment system, the U.S. Air Force is evolving its training infrastructure to adapt for operations in contested and denied environments, an increased pace of warfare, and the potential loss of superiority across multiple domains. The authors explore how addressing readiness assessment gaps can help inform related decisionmaking.

The U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF) must develop and sustain mission-critical knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) among airmen, guardians, and civilians. Yet training and education is costly. This report describes how computational cognitive models can deliver personalized and adaptive training that enhanced learning gains and reduced training time for mission-critical KSAs, with emphasis on second-language learning, for the DAF.

To ensure a ready workforce without undercutting modernization and sustainment efforts, the U.S. Air Force must explore options to limit military personnel costs while considering the nonmonetary trade-offs and risks that these options entail. RAND Project AIR FORCE conducted a workforce futures policy game that simulates the monetary and nonmonetary effects of workforce and personnel policies in real time.

The Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act established an alternative framework for setting promotion policies for military officers in competitive categories. The authors examine whether a shift to alternative promotion authority (APA) would be beneficial to the U.S. Air Force, how it would be implemented, and the use of related policy options-merit sequencing and lineal zone management-under either conventional or APA.

Since 2000, spending on military personnel has grown at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent. This increase in spending threatens to undermine readiness and crowd out future efforts to modernize key military capabilities. A new tool simulates how various Department of the Air Force personnel policy changes could affect spending, allowing users to view cost variances when adjusting such factors as personnel count, rank, and experience levels.

The Department of the Air Force is revamping the way it manages officer development and promotion. These changes will enhance leadership's ability to identify and develop talent at all stages of an officer's career. To help evaluate new personnel policies, the authors built a tool called the Air Force Personnel Policy Simulation Tool, which simulates effects of new personnel policies on career field health and demographic diversity.

This report, which describes the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) systems to assist in Air Force command and control (C2) from a technical perspective, presents an analytical framework for assessing the suitability of a given AI system for a given C2 problem. The authors also provide metrics that can be used to evaluate AI systems and to demonstrate and socialize their utility.