Ryan Meritt, 2025
Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2013
M.S., Aerospace Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2010
B.S, Aerospace Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2009
Dr. Ryan Meritt currently serves as Director of Ahmic Operations, a division of CUBRC Inc. He oversees a multidisciplinary engineering team responsible for developing precision instrumentation used in hypersonic ground and flight testing. His current work supports critical Department of Defense and aerospace industry programs by delivering advanced measurement systems capable of operating in extreme environments.
Dr. Meritt earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech. His doctoral research, completed under the guidance of Dr. Joe Schetz, focused on experimental techniques for measuring skin friction in high-speed, high-enthalpy flows. These efforts included extensive testing at national hypersonic facilities and contributed to advancements in boundary-layer diagnostics that remain in use today.
Following completion of his master’s degree, Dr. Meritt commissioned into the U.S. Air Force in 2010. He served as Lead Engineer for the Integrated Aircrew Ensemble program, a $100 million effort to deliver advanced, joint-service protective flight equipment to warfighters operating in diverse mission environments. He later became Operations Officer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, where he managed a $10 million scramjet test facility and led test campaigns in support of hypersonic propulsion research.
In 2014, Dr. Meritt founded Ahmic Aerospace LLC with the vision to transform the way aerospace data is collected through the commercialization of high-precision measurement technologies. Under his leadership, Ahmic became the first company to offer commercial-off-the-shelf wall shear sensors and has since produced and delivered more than 1,000 units to academic, industry, and defense organizations. Over the course of a decade, he scaled Ahmic into a $3 million-per-year operation with a team of over a dozen engineers and technical staff. In 2024, the company was acquired by CUBRC Inc., becoming the Ahmic Operations division. Dr. Meritt continues to lead the group’s innovation strategy, expanding its instrumentation portfolio to support a wide range of aerodynamic and thermal testing applications. He holds two U.S. patents related to sensor technology and is the author of more than 25 technical publications.