James Connelly

Dr. Connelly left the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aviation Security Laboratory to join L-3 Communications Security and Detection Systems Division in 1998. His experience in developing explosives detection equipment while at the security laboratory helped the team prepare for and pass the FAA certification test. Over the next several years, Dr. Connelly’s team achieved certification at reduced threat mass, produced a reduced false alarm algorithm that actually increased detection at the same time, and became the first team to pass TSA’s expanded detection standard that covered homemade explosives.

In his role as Sr. Director at L-3, Dr. Connelly oversaw all engineering activities at the St. Petersburg facility of L-3 S&DS. His team of 24 engineers was responsible for the development and maintenance of the detection algorithms, the system software and the user interfaces for the eXaminer product line, as well as several new system development efforts. In addition to his management duties, Dr. Connelly played an active role in the development of several major new systems. Dr. Connelly contributed to the development of system requirements, review of designs by all disciplines (Mechanical, Electrical, Physics, Algorithm and Software), and review of project progress.

In addition to his system development and management duties, Dr. Connelly served as Co-Chair on the ANSI N42.45 working group which developed the American National Standard for Evaluating the Image Quality of X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) Security-Screening Systems, initially published by IEEE in 2011.

Dr. Connelly joined IDSS in May 2014 as the Chief Technology Officer and leads all our Research & Development efforts.