2025 MSIAC Munition Safety Awards
The 2025 MSIAC Munition Safety Awards were announced at the Energetic Materials Technology Working Group (EMTWG) in Boston, USA on 27 October 2025. Unfortunately, none of the recipients were in attendance, but their prizes were presented to them during subsequent events.
The following awards were presented:
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Patrick Brousseau (CAN) on 23 February 2026 during the 51st Annual Five Eyes Science & Technology (FVEYs S&T) WPN TP-4 Technical Panel Meeting.
Patrick has been the leader of the Munition Systems Group at the Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) in Valcartier, Canada for 15 years. He is a world class expert in energetic materials and a prominent figure for insensitive munitions (IM) in Canada. He has been heavily involved in NATO activities such as the Science & Technology Organization Applied Vehicle Technology (STO AVT) Committee and MSIAC activities. Highlights of Patrick’s career also include being the Canadian Lead for the FVEYs S&T WPN TP-4 and a member of the editorial board for the Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics journal.
Technical Achievement Award
The Technical Achievement Award was presented by Mr. Chris Grassano, Director of US Army’s DEVCOM Armaments Center (AC), to Nick Tashjian (USA) and Aaron Benfante (USA) from the DEVCOM AC for their work on Energetic Defect Characterization.
The technical work done by Nick and Aaron enabled:
- The acceptance of projectiles with defects through a developed methodology to assess safety for gun firing.
- A unique combination of testing, modelling, simulation and statistics to develop the approach.
- The development of a program to design a limited test program at small and large scale to feed modelling and FEA analysis for the prediction of suitability for gun firing.
- The development of a new “medium” set back simulator test.
Congratulations to the 2025 MSIAC Munition Safety Awards recipients!
