A Georgia Tech honors graduate who was both a Rhodes and Truman Scholar may have a chance to impact the purchase of new technologies for the Air Force. William Roper, currently founding director of the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office, is President Trump's nominee to be assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions. Roper, who has argued that the Defense Department should use more commercial software, graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. from the School of Physics in 2001. He earned his M.S. in physics from Tech in 2002, also summa cum laude. Roper has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Oxford.