Rutgers Alumna Marisa Jenkins’s Route to Safer Skies

Mechanical engineering and astrophysics major enhances runway safety for Boeing

It’s a truism that commercial flight is the safest form of travel. And thanks to Rutgers graduate Marisa Jenkins, traveling by plane soon will be even safer.

As flight deck surface operations principal investigator at the Boeing Company, Jenkins plays a lead role in introducing a new protocol that enhances runway safety.

The program, dubbed Runway Situation Awareness Tools, minimizes unexpected runway departures (“excursions” in industry parlance) by giving pilots greater control and timely information to support runway approach and landing. It is in this final, on-the-ground phase of the journey, says Jenkins, when the majority of aviation incidents occur.

“Excursions are the leading cause of aviation accidents in the  past few years,” says Jenkins. Indeed, a report in Aviation International News, an industry news magazine, noted research published by Boeing revealing that runway excursion fatalities have increased over recent decades even as in-flight safety has remained stable or improved.

Why do runway excursions occur? Jenkins says it’s “often a combination of factors including an unstable approach, landing long and/or fast and runway conditions being worse than expected.”

A Colts Neck native, Jenkins transferred to Rutgers’ School of Engineering after a year at Penn State and emerged in 2005 with dual degrees in mechanical engineering and astrophysics with a minor in math. “Pretty nerdy,” she concedes.

From childhood she was primed to pursue a profession that looked skyward, she reflects. “My dad was planetarium director at Jonas Salk Middle School (in Old Bridge) and used to teach me about the stars,” she says. “That’s what got me into astrophysics. I enjoyed classes on Busch Campus using telescopes. How often do you get to do a class at night?”

Rutgers’ “hands-on” approach to education appealed to Jenkins. “In engineering, we had the labs and research projects,” she says. “It’s great to learn the theoretical material, but it was a particular benefit to be able to apply those ideas.”

As a senior, Jenkins landed an internship at Boeing in Seattle.

“The reason I came all the way out here is that I figured, I’m from New Jersey and will probably never live that far away again,” she says with a laugh. “And here I am in Seattle, eight years later.”

Jenkins returned to Boeing after graduation to work on the 787 Dreamliner.

“We were in the design phase when I joined the team,” she says. “I got to participate from when it was just a design on paper, to building it, to seeing it fly. I got to watch its first flight.”

After earning a master’s in aeronautics and astronautic engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Jenkins became principal investigator for surface operations — which meant zeroing in on potential safety and efficiency lapses while planes are on the ground and during taxi, takeoff and landing. This required some skillful sleuthing, she says. “None of our customers are the same and there’s not just one cause for excursions, but several possible factors. And we have to consider all of them.”

The safety enhancements include a suite of awareness and alerting tools plus training aids and procedures that help pilots better plan their landings. “We took a grassroots approach to the problem of runway excursions,” she says. “We engaged all the people involved: the pilots, who will use it; the engineers, who design it; and customers. As engineers and scientists, we’re often drawn to elegant solutions, but they’re not worth much if no one knows how to use them.”

Late in 2012, Boeing announced a partnership with Brazilian-based Embraer to incorporate the safety tools into their flight procedures.  “This means bringing the program to a bigger piece of the industry,” says Jenkins, “to enhance safety across multiple fleetsof aircraft.” How many planes are we talking about? There are more than 9,000 Boeing airplanes flying today; on average, a Boeing 737 takes off or lands every two seconds. Embraer serves more than 90 commercial airlines worldwide.

Jenkins admits she’s pretty youthful for the work she’s doing and in awe of the opportunities available to her. “The most exciting thing is when I go around the world, observing runways and attending conventions,” she says. “From the engineering and cultural standpoint, people have different ways of tackling the problem. But I’ve seen that wherever you go, everyone wants to do the right thing.”

Watch Boeing's video to see Marisa Jenkins at work and learn more about what she does.