Lt. Pasquale Cassese graduated from Saint Augustine College Preparatory School in 2014 and earned his commission through the Norwich University ROTC program in 2018, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering.
He reported to USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) in Mayport, Florida, in May 2018, serving as Combat Electronics Officer through July 2020. During this tour, he completed one deployment and earned his Surface Warfare Officer qualification. In December 2020, he fleeted up as Fire Control Officer aboard The Sullivans, completing three deployments to the FIFTH, SIXTH, and SEVENTH Fleets. He also qualified as an Anti-Air Warfare Coordinator, Ballistic Missile Defense Officer, and Tactical Action Officer.
In 2023, he was named Missile Defender of the Year by the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. Recently he was awarded the Naval Sea Systems Command Award for Excellence in Combat Systems upon graduation from NPS. His personal awards include the Navy Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal, and various unit and campaign awards.
Working with Dr. Drago Grbovic and Dr. Keith Cohn has been crucial to my understanding of the COMSOL program and in giving me the guidance to properly test and execute my thesis. Also having multiple weapon classes apart of the Applied Physics Curriculum such as Modern Missiles and Directed Energy Systems helped me gather knowledge of the physics that systems undergo while in operation.
As a prior Surface Warfare Officer now Engineering Duty Officer, I was the Fire Control Officer on my last ship. I was heavily involved in the anti-air warfare and missile defense of the ship. I think that adding the directed energy component into the combat system architecture would allow for less of our own ship missiles to be used and conserve vital inventory.
I think the biggest issue to date is the type of lasers that are available for shipboard use and how they can be integrated into the overall combat system of the ship. There are some issues when using directed energy in open ocean so my research added a component to take into account for material degradation rather than just melting through the entire material.
I think the best deployment scenarios would be for various air to surface missile threats. The research builds a foundation that can continue to be built upon. My research was a small portion of the bigger world of directed energy, but was crucial to introduce different temperature-dependent material properties.
The laser lab is still being built and is not operational. We would have loved to get data from the lab for my own research, but the installation is still in progress. Once the lab is running, the test results from the lab will be crucial to compare to the COMSOL models that I experimented with.
