Inaugural Marine Corps AI Fellowship Advances Workforce, Applications

Jan. 30, 2026 | By Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Abreen Padeken, Naval Postgraduate School |

As the Department of the Navy continues to operationalize artificial intelligence across the Navy and Marine Corps, high-profile systems such as unmanned platforms or large-scale information tools grab most of the headlines. But the power of AI extends well beyond these examples, supporting data analysis for complex problem-solving, process automation and decision-support tools at every level. 
 
The Marine Corps is advancing an implementation strategy to leverage AI across the force. A key component of this effort is the AI fellowship at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The new program enables Marines to apply AI capabilities directly to operational challenges, translating emerging technologies into practical, data-driven solutions for the fleet.

 
"When the fellowship opportunity presented itself, I realized that this is where AI could be appropriately inserted. Not to do our jobs for us, but to streamline our existing process and free our operators to work on more complex problems," said Marine Corps Capt. Stephen Steckler, a member of the inaugural cohort of AI fellows and an NPS graduate in computer science. 
 
Developed in alignment with existing AI strategy and the 39th Commandant's Planning Guidance, the fellowship program accelerates applied AI research while simultaneously developing the service's AI workforce. 
 
Launched in August 2025, program participants spent five months dividing their time between applied research and field experimentation on a use case each fellow has identified. The fellows received targeted AI instruction and mentorship from NPS faculty and industry experts to assist with hands-on research. 
 
Fast forward to early 2026, and the inaugural cohort of AI fellows returned to campus to present their findings to Marine Corps leaders and a cross-section of NPS professors, faculty, students and advisors.

 
Christopher Paul, Marine Corps chairman for information at NPS, is program lead for this pilot of the AI fellowship, which he modeled after the Air Force Phantom Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The program is structured to integrate operational insight with technical expertise, Paul said, leveraging Marines who are familiar with contemporary fleet challenges and understand the potential of AI. 
 
The use cases represented in this inaugural cohort demonstrate the far-reaching potential of AI, Paul said, and how it can be applied across the force to empower people and drive innovation. 
 
"One of our fellows, [Marine Corps] Cpl. Joe Sadler, down at Camp Pendleton, [California,] is in a battalion maintenance facility. He's looking to build a tool that's large language model-based that has an agentic shell that helps with the paperwork surrounding maintenance activities," Paul explained.  

With considerable time and effort spent outside of the actual maintenance, Sadler's idea has the potential to save significant time and effort, he said. 
 
Steckler's project is another example of using AI to help Marines do their jobs better and faster, Paul said.  

"He's at the Marine Corps Operational Test and Evaluation Activity where they get all kinds of new gear and prototype gear, and they have to perform different red teaming and penetration testing of the circuits and the onboard computer apparatus in that gear," Paul said. 
 
Steckler's project explored the use of edge-deployed large language models to automate and streamline Marine Corps cybersecurity operational testing. Developed for his command, the system is designed to operate in classified, air-gapped environments while integrating existing commercial security tools into a single, natural-language interface, reducing both analyst workload and training demands.  

With an overall accuracy rate of 93.3%, the project shows strong potential to reduce personnel requirements and testing timelines, with clear pathways for further development and operational adoption. 
 
In this testing, too much time is spent on applying known vulnerabilities and exploits, Paul said.  

"The vision is to build an AI tool that can automate a bunch of that process," he noted, leaving more time to "think of creative ways to attack or possibly penetrate that gear, so that those vulnerabilities can be patched, closed or avoided before the gear is ever fielded." 
 
While the issues the fellows set out to address were complex, the fellowship's goal is just as much about developing the Marine Corps' AI workforce as it is about the final product. And in just five short months, Steckler said, there were a handful of critical lessons learned that he is eager to share with the next cohort of fellows, who were also on hand for the program review on campus. 
 
"Scope your problem appropriately and pursue your rate-limiting factor aggressively," he said. "Whatever it is that you do not have up front and will take time to get, pursue immediately. With the professors and connections that NPS has, they can move mountains to get you what you need." 
 
While fellows conducted the initial research sprint, programs like the Marine Corps Software Factory provide a parallel pathway to operationalize this work beyond the academic environment. With fellows focused on research-driven prototyping rooted in operational challenges, the software factory works to translate these concepts into production-ready digital tools, reinforcing a broader ecosystem that enables Marines to move AI solutions from the classroom to command.

 
Together, these efforts create a continuum that links education, experimentation and deployment, ensuring innovation does not stall at the prototype stage. Guiding these efforts is Marine Corps Col. Pedro Ortiz, software factory liaison officer for AI and emerging technology, who was on hand to hear the fellows' presentations.  

Ortiz is a graduate of the Marine Corps doctorate technical program at NPS that is designed to build a cadre of highly technical Marine Corps officers to identify technological breakthroughs for warfighting applications and support senior leaders in strategy and long-range concept and capability development. 
 
"The projects presented today are a small and important sample of how Marines can implement AI solutions at their level," Ortiz said. "I can envision in the future that this program could produce prototypes that the Marine Corps Software Factory could then transform into production-level software for use across the Marine Corps." 
 
Central to the plan is the principle that AI must augment, not replace, Marines. As AI adoption escalates, balancing speed and risk emerges as a recurring theme. Marine Corps leaders acknowledge the rapid pace of AI development and the corresponding need for agility, while emphasizing that governance structures must remain robust. 
 
"I am very proud of the breadth this program has become. We have such a dynamic range of participants — from government service employees to officers and even a corporal," Paul said. "This program has the workings of great minds at every level of leadership." 
 
As the second cohort of fellows gets underway, the Marine Corps is looking ahead, exploring the establishment of a center for digital transformation to serve as a hub for AI knowledge products, prototyping and collaboration with academia and industry. Partnerships with institutions like NPS, and federally funded research and development centers are expected to play a central role in this effort.