Dr. Jacqueline Henningsen serves as the U.S. Air Force‘s director for studies and analyses, assessments and lessons learned, based at the branch’s headquarters in Washington.
Reporting to the secretary and chief of staff, she oversees implementation for analytic and lessons learned policy oversight.
She oversees the processes underpinning warfighting, force structure capability and sufficiency assessments; informs leadership on emerging issues; oversees resource investment decisions; and rapidly collects, disseminates, implements and tracks lessons learned.
Henningsen elevated to her current position in 2006 and previously served for five years as director of the Air Force Studies and Analyses Agency, which falls under the responsibility of the Air Force’s vice chief of staff.
In 1998, she elevated to the Senior Executive Service as associate director for modeling, simulation and analysis with the directorate for command and control in the office of the deputy chief of staff for air and space operations.
In that role, she provided corporate oversight of Air Force modeling, simulation and analysis.
Henningsen began her Air Force civilian service career in 1985 and has served as both the final assessments division chief for Strategic Air Command and the first chief of assessments for U.S. Strategic Command.
In these positions, she led strategic deterrence and conventional war-fighting capability assessments and provided wargaming oversight during the transition period at the end of the Cold War.
In 1992, she joined the office of the secretary of defense and held oversight of strategic and space launch programs in the program analysis and evaluation directorate’s cost analysis improvement group.
As an analyst in the regional assessments and modeling division, she was responsible for a defense secretary-initiated joint analytic model improvement program and country teams for the Partnership for Peace Resource Management Program.
She was also responsible for Joint Staff program reviews, evaluation of Joint Forces Command establishment initiatives and quadrennial defense review assessments.
Henningsen is a recipient of the 2005 Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award for analytic leadership in the Defense Department, two Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Awards in 2001 and 2009 and an Air Force Meritorious Civilian Service Award for her role in supporting Strategic Air Command during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.