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Responsibilities: Ms. Ryan is responsible for the geography, mapping, and remote sensing activities and policies at the USGS, the Nation's largest civilian mapping agency.

Career History and Highlights: During Ms. Ryan's 27-year career with the USGS, she has worked in seven States and Washington, D.C.

Before becoming Associate Director for Geography, she served as the Bureau's Chief Information Officer, framing the agency's vision for its Gateway-to-the-Earth initiative, and Chief Financial Officer, where under her leadership, the USGS received the first clean audit opinion in its history.

From 1989 to 1991, she served as Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science for the Department of the Interior, where she coordinated the Government's first compilation of Federal ground-water programs.

Much of her early career was spent as a field hydrologist studying ground-water contamination and participating in the Nation's first systematic study of water-quality conditions.

Education: Ms. Ryan has a master's in geography from the University of Denver, a master's in Civil Engineering from Stanford University, and a bachelor's in geology from the State University of New York at Cortland