June 12, 2026 – Ignite Labs is proud to announce that Brett McWilliams has been promoted to Director of the Simulations Lab.
In his new role, Brett leads Ignite’s most ambitious technical undertaking to date: a new generation of world-model-based simulations and wargaming sandboxes built for complex-systems approaches to future warfare.
He is the technical lead for Fight Club, Ignite’s adversarial multi-agent platform for stress-testing capabilities, courses of action, and assumptions in support of the U.S. Space Force and other DoD partners.
“Brett’s leadership unlocks a new chapter of innovation for Ignite Labs,” said Jairus Grove, Director of Ignite Labs. “He combines deep experience with the hardest problems at the Missile Defense Agency with the bleeding edge of agentic research and simulations. With Brett at the helm of the Simulations Lab, we are driving toward behavioral models that reflect the real-world agents fighting the next war.”
Brett is a technology executive working at the intersection of AI/ML, secure cloud modernization, digital engineering, and advanced analytics for DoD mission environments.
Before his role at Ignite Labs, Brett led advanced modeling, simulation, and analysis efforts supporting Ballistic Missile Defense System improvement and Ground-Based Interceptor assessment. He brings hands-on expertise in agentic AI, multi-agent reasoning, generative AI, neural networks, sensor fusion, discrimination tactics, and cloud-based technical architectures, a skill set tailor-made for the work the Simulations Lab has on its plate.
The Simulations Lab is Ignite’s hub for building world-model sandboxes that let DoD planners, analysts, and assessment teams stress-test future force structures, doctrine, and assumptions before committing them to high-fidelity modeling and simulation or to the field.
Under Brett’s leadership, the lab will continue to scale Fight Club, deepen Ignite’s agentic-AI capabilities, and expand the portfolio of mission environments that can be turned into fightable, queryable worlds in hours rather than quarters.
Congratulations on your well-earned promotion, Brett!