Ph.D. in Aviation Helps Accomplished Aviator Continue Aerospace Innovations

Dr. John Maris (’17) has spent most of his life on the leading edge of aviation.

He took his first flying lesson at age 12, and by the time he was 17 years old and legally able to earn his license, he was already exploring better ways to warn pilots of impending stalls.

Combining his natural flying skills with a love for engineering and problem-solving helped John chart the course for a lifetime of aviation achievement that has seen him succeed as a military aircraft commander, test pilot, inventor, safety expert, teacher and owner of an aerospace consortium that continues breaking new ground today.

John’s growing list of accomplishments landed him in the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame in 2018, and in fall 2023, he earned top honors for papers he presented before the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the Society of Fight Test Engineers and the International Test Pilot School.

In May, John was named to the 2024 Fellows Class by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, which is the group’s top honor. John will join 14 other Fellows in being recognized at the Society’s 68th Annual Symposium & Banquet in September.

That’s in addition to literally dozens of other accolades that include being awarded Canada’s oldest aeronautical prize, the prestigious Trans-Canada (McKee) Trophy, for his contributions to Canadian aerospace and being presented with an Aviation Week and Space Technology Laureate at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, the companion facility of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

“I have been very privileged,” John said of his spectacular aerospace career thus far. “I can never turn down working on something to get the right answer.”

The Right Ph.D. Program at the Right Time

His search for answers to ongoing safety and human factors questions was among the things that brought him to Embry‑Riddle’s unique Ph.D. in Aviation program.

Launched in 2010, the nation’s first doctoral program in aviation allows students to participate in a rigorous, research-driven course that pushes them to reach their greatest potential. Designed with working professionals in mind, the flexible, mainly online delivery enables students to continue excelling in their careers while pursuing doctoral education.

For John, the Ph.D. program also enhanced the ongoing development of his Airfoil Performance Monitor (APM) concept, which offers a more comprehensive stall warning system for pilots, especially crucial when ice or other airflow disruptions are present.

“The overall program aligned with what I wanted, which was focusing on aviation safety and human factors,” he said. “I wanted to become better-rounded from an academic perspective and get the respectability that this Ph.D. obviously provides. It also gave me a very targeted approach to getting data for the APM, forcing me to look at every accident and incident in the last 50 years in North America related to icing, analyze them and come to some conclusions about stall warnings, which in my day job I never would have done.”

John said he found plenty of other plusses in the Ph.D. program.

“The course was terrific, and it wasn’t just about the academics,” he said. “It was also about the networking. My colleagues in the cohort were an outstanding cross-section of the aerospace community. For example, I met my esteemed friend and colleague, Bob Maxson, the Director of NOAA’s Aviation Weather Center, on day one of the program.”

An Early Eagle Leaves a Lasting Impact

John initially discovered Embry‑Riddle in the early 1980s, not long after he earned a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London in England, where he was raised.

Visiting his parents, who had retired to the Bahamas, he saw a small ad for Embry‑Riddle in an aviation magazine and decided to check it out.

“Today, the Daytona Beach Campus looks like Starfleet Academy,” John said. “But at the time I was there, the buildings that I regularly studied in weren't even air-conditioned. The evolution of the university in my lifetime has been truly astonishing.”

In 1982, John earned a Master’s in Air Science (as the degree was called then) and followed that up in 1983 with a Master’s in Aviation Management, now the Master of Business Administration in Aviation Management.

John’s initial relationship with Embry‑Riddle also grew along with the campus, and shortly before he started the Ph.D. program in 2012, he received the President’s Award for his contributions to the school, which included, among other things, serving on advisory boards for the President’s office and the College of Engineering.

Those early days at Embry‑Riddle helped put John on a course to the Canadian Armed Forces. There, he served as an antisubmarine pilot flying a Lockheed P-3 Aurora, the Canadian version of the P-3 Orion used by the U.S. Navy, an aircraft he chose even though he had the option of becoming a fighter pilot.

“Halfway through my training, I realized that I absolutely did not have the temperament to be a fighter pilot,” he said. “I’m not competitive, and I’m not aggressive. I'm very much a team player and strategist, and the Aurora had a crew of about 15, so the team environment absolutely suited my leadership style.”

Not that the flying was dull by any means.

“It's a very high-performance aircraft flown right at the edge of its envelope,” John said. “You're in this airliner, basically 200 feet above the waves with a 100-foot wingspan, banking 60 degrees with one or two engines shut down (to save fuel), doing 200 knots and chasing something that's doing 2 knots.”

Not long after he and his crew became Canada’s O’Brien Trophy antisubmarine champions, John was competitively selected to attend the 1988 course at the prestigious  U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, one of the top destinations for any pilot.

John’s last assignment in his 12-year military career was with the Canadian Space Agency, where he was appointed as manager for the early development of the workstations that now control the Canadarm2 robotic arm on the International Space Station.

Investigation is the Mother of Invention

At the same time as he was racking up this impressive list of aerospace accomplishments, John was just as busy on the ground, founding his company, Marinvent Corporation, in 1983 as a repository for the flood of patents he’s developed over the years to make aviation safer and more efficient.

The APM, for example, is a system John believes can save many lives by providing pilots with an additional and independent information source that would alert them to an impending stall, even in adverse conditions such as icing and even following the failure of other air data and stall protection systems. 

An APM could have prevented numerous crashes, such as Air France Flight 447 in 2009, AeroPeru Flight 603 in 1996 or Air Florida Flight 90 in 1982.

In addition to the continuing work on the APM, John also worked extensively with the renowned aeronautical chart company Jeppesen Sanderson to begin developing the software and hardware that would ultimately lead to a “paperless cockpit,” something today’s pilots can take for granted.

In the 1980s and early 90s, however, paper charts and thick books of checklists and regulations were part of every aviator’s fight bag, and John wanted to change that using the emerging technology of the time.

“The world's standard for electronic charting was developed by my company working closely with a talented team at Jeppesen,” he said. “So, if you see a Jeppesen chart in Foreflight, on a Collins or Honeywell display, in a flight simulator, or on your iPhone, it uses a library we created.”

Marinvent first demonstrated the feasibility of digital charts in the early 1990s, but the platforms to run them effectively and accessibly were still several years down the road. Eventually, the technology caught up, and today, it has led to Foreflight, an integrated flight app that offers charts, maps and much more.

Although many pilots these days couldn’t imagine flying without electronic charts or applications such as Foreflight, John is humble about his significant contributions to helping bring these innovations to the flight deck.

“If we hadn't done it, the technology would have inevitably emerged,” he said. “Although my group didn’t work on it, I think Foreflight is a brilliantly executed product that continues to evolve on a weekly basis, so I’m a huge fan of it. I’m very proud that the Jeppesen charts it displays incorporate the technology we developed in the early 90s, but Foreflight picks up where we left off.”

Today, Marinvent is part of a consortium of thriving companies doing aerospace work around the globe. Marinvent is an intellectual property company that holds the many patents that John has earned over the years.

Cert Center Canada (3C) is a research and development and certification company that does precisely that and is currently involved in a $250 million project with renowned engine maker Pratt & Whitney to develop a Hybrid Electric Propulsion demonstrator using 3C’s Dash-8 aircraft as a test bed. John is the Chief Test Pilot for the project, and his team will provide the airborne flight crew and lead the flight test program.

“3C is the only independent commercial organization dedicated solely to airworthiness certification in Canada,” John said.

The third company, Advanced Aerospace Solutions (AdvAero), is an American-controlled vehicle that paves the way for John and his team to continue their long history of work with U.S. agencies such as the FAA and NASA.

AdvAero was named NASA’s 2014-15 agency-wide subcontractor of the year for its contribution to the TASAR flight test program, for which John was Principal Investigator and Test Pilot.

AdvAero has authored and contributed to several NASA publications and has received team awards “for outstanding research and development.” John is also a Fellow of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and an Associate Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

A Ph.D. With ROI

With all the honors and recognition from a life as an aerospace pioneer, John still counts his Ph.D. in Aviation from Embry‑Riddle among his cherished milestones.

“I would unhesitatingly recommend the program,” he said. “It is a great deal of work, but if your motivations and goals are clear, that will keep the carrot in front of you when you’re studying at 2 a.m.”

Although he could easily rest on his laurels, John hasn’t even considered slowing down. In addition to the work with NASA and Pratt & Whitey, he’s also focused on the continued rollout of the APM along with an augmented primary flight display that presents pilots with critical flight information quickly and clearly.

Because he loves what he does every day, he says it’s easy to keep forging ahead.

“Even though I often end up working 20-hour days and I sometimes feel that I put in nine-day weeks, I'm not a workaholic,” he said. “I have two fabulous kids and my lovely partner Nancy, and I enjoy being with them. But working at this confluence of engineering and human factors is something I just find absolutely irresistible.”