Iain Boyd News

Militaries around the world are rapidly developing science fiction-like laser weapons, motivated in part by the growing threat from swarms of drones. Read from CU defense expert Iain Boyd in The Conversation.

Iain Boyd was interviewed by CBS News for a piece discussing a high altitude balloon slowly making its way across the United States. A professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, Boyd is also the director of the CU Boulder Center for National Security Initiatives...

What is the "Iron Dome" that protects Israel from missile attacks and why did it fail on Oct. 7? Iain Boyd discusses missile defense systems in a new interview with Fox's LiveNOW network. Boyd is a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and director...

How did so many Hamas missiles penetrate Israel’s state-of-the-art air defense system? CU Boulder aerospace engineer Iain Boyd explains in The Conversation.

Scientists shouldn’t be afraid to talk about, or even study, those mysterious objects flying in the sky—maybe just don’t call them UFOs. That was one of the conclusions of a panel discussion this weekend at ScienceWriters2023 , an annual gathering of hundreds of science journalists and communicators from around the...

Iain Boyd discusses research into unidentified aerial phenomena in a new Popular Mechanics article. Boyd is a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and director of the CU Boulder Center for National Security Initiatives. The piece focuses on renewed military efforts to study unexplained...

Iain Boyd was interviewed for a new article in Popular Mechanics on efforts to track hypersonic weapons. At issue? Hypersonic weapons often travel at fast enough speeds to generate a sheath of plasma, which can obscure them to radar. Traditional missiles travel at comparably slower speeds and are much easier...

Iain Boyd was interviewed by national and international outlets on the balloon from China that overflew the United States. A professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, Boyd is also the director of the CU Boulder Center for National Security Initiatives. He spoke to multiple...

The U.S. military shot down what officials have called a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, 2023. Iain Boyd, professor of aerospace engineering sciences, explains how the balloons work and what they can see. Read it on The Conversation.

Professor Iain Boyd discusses the War in Ukraine and Russia's use of hypersonic weapons in a new article in Newsweek. Boyd, who is also the director of the CU Boulder Center for National Security Initiatives , is a leading researcher in hypersonic aerothermodynamics. Hypersonic weapons present major new challenges to...