Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) student U.S. Navy Cmdr. Chris Angelopoulos has been recognized with the quarter’s top academic honor, receiving the Monterey County Navy League Award for Highest Academic Achievement during the 2018 Spring Awards Ceremony in Herrmann Hall, June 5.

“This represents a lot for me personally ... I am very thankful to be nominated, and to accept the award,” said Angelopoulos.

The Navy League Award is achieved through outstanding academic performance, pre-eminent thesis research, motivation and the ability to possess the qualifications of a leader.

“It was a lot of work,” continued Angelopoulos, “It ended up being a lot of weekends getting in the material and just trying to incorporate it.”

In addition to the Navy League Award, Angelopoulos was also acknowledged for community involvement, as well as research performed for his thesis, “Augmented Reality in the Maintenance Domain.”

Augmented reality is an interactive experience that takes computer-generated images and incorporates them into the real world through an eyepiece. For Angelopoulos, it could be utilized to provide visual, hands-on instruction, rather than the basic instructional manual that some find to be ineffective.

“How annoying is it when you open a manual to learn how to do something and you just want to try to do it?” Angelopoulos said. “That’s the kind of the core of my thesis ... To look at the communication pathway between the engineer or the designer and me as a person, and try and help that communication become clearer and less error prone.”

Following graduation, Angelopoulos will remain at NPS, working in the university’s information technology sector while he continues his education.  

“I think I’m going to work in ITACS [Information Technology and Communications Services] in the cyber operations center,” Angelopoulos said, “And at the same time, I will be simultaneously working on my Ph.D.”