Gordon Cooke is a 2000 graduate of the US Military Academy. He served 6 years as a Combat Engineer Officer in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, including a 12 month deployment to Mosul, Iraq. After leaving active duty, Gordon spent 12 years as a Research Engineer and then Scientist at the US Army Armaments Research, Development & Engineering Center (ARDEC). As a researcher in the Tactical Behavior Research Lab, he led projects investigating the effects of non-lethal weapons on human targets, as well as how soldiers/users interact with weapon systems. Many of the projects in the lab involved the use of simulators as well as the creation and building of their own custom simulation system for the lab. While working at ARDEC, Gordon completed his Masters Degree as well as Certificates in Ordnance Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He was selected for an Army Fellowship by ARDEC and completed his Doctoral work collecting empirical data and modeling the relationship between impact forces and the chance of a person falling to the ground. In 2013 Gordon became one of the inaugural faculty members for the US Army Armament Graduate School teaching classes such as Statistics, Research Design, and Interior Ballistics. Gordon has received a number of awards, including the US Army Research & Development Achievement Award twice (2013 & 2015), the Military Operations Research Journal Award (2018), the Kurt H. Weil Award for Masters Candidate (2009), and a Best Paper Award at the 26th Army Science Conference (2008). He has presented at conferences throughout the United States and Europe; has authored more than a dozen peer reviewed papers; and written over 50 government technical reports.