University of Central Florida graduate David Kotick ’81 ’83MS has been selected as one of seven inductees this year to the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

The hall recognizes and commends Florida inventors whose achievements have advanced the quality of life for Floridians, the state and the nation.

Kotick is one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s leading subject-matter experts in the field of virtual communications. He is being recognized for seminal innovations integrating digital communications across live and virtual training environments that have advanced simulated training for the U.S. military and benefited overall readiness, culminating with the Digital Radio Management System.

Kotick earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering in the early 1980s and was a member of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. He is the second UCF alum and seventh Knight to earn the distinction.

UCF’s Florida Inventors Hall of Fame History
2014 – Shin-Tson Wu, Pegasus Professor of Optics
2016 – M.J. Soileau, University Distinguished Professor of Optics & Photonics
2016 – Jacqueline W. Quinn ’94MS ’99PhD, environmental engineer and research scientist, NASA Kennedy Space Center
2017 – Issa Batarseh, Pegasus Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Florida Solar Energy Center’s Energy System Integration Division
2018 – Sudipta Seal, UCF Trustee Chair, Pegasus and University Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
2019 – Michael Bass, professor emeritus of optics and photonics, physics, electrical and computer engineering

2021 – David Kotick ’81 ’83MS, senior science technical manager at the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division

Inductees are selected annually through a nomination process open to all inventors (living or deceased) with a connection to the state of Florida. The nominations are reviewed by a selection committee made up of distinguished experts in relevant fields of innovation. This year’s honorees are scheduled to be inducted at the 7th annual Florida Inventors Hall of Fame induction ceremony and gala on Nov. 5 at the Tampa Marriott Water Street.

More about Kotick

Kotick began working on training systems for the Navy in 1981, and moved up the ranks to his current position as senior scientific technical manager for Live Virtual Constructive (LVC)  at the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division.

With more than 40 years of experience in the Navy Modeling and Simulation Research and Development arena, Kotick has been at the forefront of designing and developing digital voice solutions to enable military forces to train as they would fight.

Kotick holds multiple patents in the fields of digital communications and simulation technology. Among his many innovations, his work on the family of systems comprising the Digital Radio Management System is foundational to LVC advancement, as it provides a single synthetic training communications system that enables realistic tactical communications across all warfare areas, classification levels and releasable domains. Kotick further developed this technology to create the Virtual Tactical Bridge Embarked Synthetic Radio, which enables voice and modeling and simulation data transport between a virtual training battle space and the live battle group, and supports live aircraft while underway and over the horizon. These innovations in digital communications and LVC have directly benefited the U.S. military’s readiness.

Kotick has been recognized with the 2016 Assistant Secretary of the Navy Dr. Delores M. Etter Top Scientist Award; Department of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal; the 2016 Commanders Excellence in Marine Air Ground Task Force Engineering Award for LVC Integration; and in 2017 was inducted into the National Center for Simulation’s Modeling and Simulation Hall of Fame. In 2013, he was named a NAVAIRSYSCOM Esteemed Fellow.