The Kelly Johnson award for outstanding achievement in Flight Test was presented to John Maris for his significant contributions to flight test engineering over 35 years.

As Principal Flight Test Investigator and test pilot at NASA, he advanced human factors, flight efficiency, and safety through projects like Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests (TASAR) and NASA's Digital Flight program. His work involved understanding the safe conduct of flight tests, integrating them into real-world air traffic control, and analyzing human factors in new operating modes. Maris also holds over 20 aerospace patents, including one for airfoil performance monitoring, which earned him the SETP Eta Award for innovation in flight testing in 2023.

His research extends to synthetic vision, signal detection theory for aviation safety, human factors in icing encounters, vehicle autonomy, and electrified flight. He is also recognized for his role in developing the JeppView® world standard for electronic charting and currently serves as Chief Test Pilot for CAE's Piper Archer electric trainer and Pratt and Whitney's Hybrid Electric Propulsion programs.

John is also a mentor and someone who takes the time to take young engineers under his wing, providing guidance, career advice and opening paths to our profession. John is an active member of SFTE, regularly presenting at symposiums and attending Chapter meetings and events.

John was nominated by the SFTE Canadian Chapter, with overwhelming support from flight testers across the world, and is a deserving winner of the Kelly Johnson Award.