Lead scientist and engineer at NSWC teaching engineering for Germanna

 By ELLIOTT FABRIZIO, NSWC Dahlgren Division Corporate Communications

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (NNS) -- "You ever notice how old men sit around and talk about how the sky is falling and two or three decades later, there's a new set of old men sitting around talking about how the sky is falling?"

  

 Dr. Walter Sessions (U.S. Navy photo by Elliott Fabrizio/Released)

Dr. Walter Sessions, a lead scientist and engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), moonlights as a professor for Germanna Community College where he educates the next generation of engineers and scientists to ensure his hypothetical question remains true.

"It's nationally known that we have a huge abyss coming when there will hardly be any scientists and engineers," said Sessions.

The desire to fill that abyss with passionate and talented science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals led Sessions to the new electrical engineering program at Germanna.

In August 2013, he began teaching two fall semester classes - Electrical Circuits I and Introduction to Engineering.

As a lead scientist for NSWCDD's Electromagnetics and Sensors Department with an engineering doctorate, he may seem overqualified for entry level instruction, but Sessions says those with the most experience are precisely who should be teaching.