Based in Washington, Jen manages Aviation Week’s worldwide defense, space and security coverage.
Prior to taking on her current role, Jen was Aviation Week's Congressional Editor. Jen came to Aviation Week in March 2011 from Politico, where she covered the intersection of defense and politics. She also worked as a reporter and editor for Defense Daily, Inside the Army, The Other Paper and The Columbus Dispatch.
Jen received a Master’s degree in journalism as a Kiplinger Fellow at the Ohio State University. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in history and journalism from the University of Michigan.
ALL BETS OFF: As the Pentagon continues forming its budget plans for fiscal 2015, it is preparing for the possibility of a second round of automatic budget cuts mandated by Congress, according to the Defense Department’s top budget official, Robert Hale. That’s a far cry from a year ago, before the first round of budget cuts known as sequestration had taken hold, when Hale bet Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a bottle of scotch that the cuts would never be realized.
To protect against a gap in U.S. weather satellite data collection, a team reviewing progress on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) satellite program is recommending the weather monitoring department rapidly purchase additional sensors.
If congressionally mandated budget cuts continue as planned for the course of the decade, the U.S. Air Force will have to cut nearly half of its planned modernization programs, the Air Force chief of staff told reporters Nov. 13. Gen. Mark Welsh has outlined his top priorities for modernization: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Long Range Strike Bomber and the KC-46 tanker and its successor. He has also identified a number of other programs that are high priorities, including Joint STARS and the T-38 trainer replacement.
