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ITL’s William MacGregor Receives Federal 100 Award from Federal Computer Week
William MacGregor, program manager of ITL’s Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Program, was selected as one of this year’s Federal 100, the top executives from government, industry, and academia who had the greatest impact on the government information systems community in 2007. MacGregor was recognized for his technical leadership of the team that established 14 standards for the PIV card that federal employees and contractors are required to carry to comply with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. The team produced publications that defined the standards and specifications for the cards, topography, biometric interfaces, middleware, and management systems. MacGregor received the award at a black-tie gala on March 26, 2007, in McLean, Virginia, and his accomplishments appear in the March 26th issue of Federal Computer Week.

ITL’s Ana Ivelisse Aviles Receives Department of Commerce Recognition for Work with Students with Disabilities

On August 22, 2006, on behalf of the Office of Civil Rights, DoC, a Certificate of Appreciation was presented to Ana Ivelisse Aviles, Statistical Engineering Division, for her significant contribution and support to the Entry Point Program which provided internships for students with disabilities during the summer of 2006. Signed by Suzan Aramaki, Commerce's Director of the Office of Civil Rights, the certificate read, "Your commitment to employment of persons with disabilities is worthy of recognition and reflects great credit upon yourself and the Department as a whole." As a result of the Entry Point internships, NIST hired two students with disabilities.

Dianne O'Leary, a faculty appointment in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division, received an honorary Doctor of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo. The degree was awarded "in recognition of her many contributions to scientific computing, to the promotion of women in the field of mathematics and computing, and for her service to the mathematical and computer science communities." O’Leary is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Mathematician Emanuel Knill Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society

Emanuel Knill, a mathematician in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division in Boulder, was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) “for fundamental contributions to our understanding of the control and manipulation of quantum systems, including quantum error correction, determination of tolerable error rates, and linear optics quantum computing.” The APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics recommended the honor in recognition of Knill’s outstanding contributions to physics. This is a high honor in that Fellow status is granted to no more than one half of one percent of APS members.

Authors Receive Best Paper Award

Larry Reeker, ITL Office of the Director, and Emma Woo, an ITL SURF student last summer who now studies at Harvard, recently received notification that they had been voted a "best paper" award for a presentation that they made at the 2005 Venice International Conference on Advances in the Internet, Processing, Systems, and Interdisciplinary Research. Entitled A Computational Basic Reference Model for Language Learning, the paper was based on Woo's SURF project, which Reeker supervised.

Ron Ross, Peter Mell, and Curt Barker Win 2006 Federal 100 Awards

Three computer scientists in the Computer Security Division received 2006 Federal 100 Awards from Federal Computer Week. Ron Ross received the award for outstanding leadership of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) project and development of an information categorization standard and set of minimum security controls to better secure federal information systems. Peter Mell was recognized for creating, implementing, and deploying the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) in concert with the Department of Homeland Security. Curt Barker received the Federal 100 award for leading and producing Federal Information Processing Standard 201 (FIPS 201), Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors. FIPS 201 specifies secure and reliable forms of identification for federal employees and contractors accessing federal facilities and information.

Symposium Honors ITL Faculty Appointee Saul Gass

More than 100 persons attended a symposium at the University of Maryland on February 25, 2006, to honor Saul Gass on the occasion of his 80 th birthday. Gass, who is the Dean’s Lifetime Achievement Professor in the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, has been a faculty appointee in ITL’s Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division for more than 20 years. Gass was instrumental in establishing the new field of operations research after World War II. His textbook, Linear Programming, now in its 5 th edition, was the first on that topic and remains a model of exposition on the subject today.

ITL’s Bradley Alpert Wins Arthur S. Flemming Award

Bradley Alpert, Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division, has been named a winner of the 2005 Arthur S. Flemming Award. Alpert was recognized in the applied science and mathematics category for a sustained record of fundamental contributions to scientific computing, including the development of fast algorithms enabling the solution to heretofore intractable problems of computational physics. He was also cited for his extensive collaborations with scientists and engineers to apply innovative techniques to the solution of diverse problems of scientific and technological interest.

Fern Hunt Featured in Chicago Science Museum Exhibit

Fern Hunt, Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division, was featured as one of 40 "Modern Day Leonardos" in an exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci currently running at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. The exhibit, entitled Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius, explores “the inventions and ingenuity of a man before his time.” As part of the exhibit, the innovative work of 40 present-day scientists and engineers are profiled. Hunt was selected based upon her work on the modeling of light scattering for computer graphics, as well as her work on bioinformatics.

Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Project Team Wins Prestigious AFFIRM Award for Leadership

The Computer Security Division’s FISMA Implementation Project team received the prestigious Association for Federal Information Resources Management (AFFIRM) Award for Leadership in Service to the Government IT Community. The FISMA team, including Joan Hash, Ray Snouffer, Curt Barker, Stu Katzke, Marianne Swanson, Arnold Johnson, Pat Toth, Peggy Himes, and Ron Ross, was recognized for outstanding achievements in developing a suite of security standards and guidelines in support of the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. The legislation, and the associated security standards and guidelines, are intended to help the federal government improve the security of our nation’s most important information systems.

Scientists Recognized for Best American Institute of Physics Publications

Isabel Beichl and Bert Rust, Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division, coauthored two articles that were identified by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) as among the most outstanding which have been appeared in the Computing in Science and Engineering (CiSE). The article by Donnelly and Rust was cited as the best experimental article in CiSE. According to the editors, “Coauthored by an experimental physicist and an applied mathematician, this article (first in the series) blends the insights and the sensibilities of both in an outstanding way to produce a memorable and eminently useful tutorial based equally in sound mathematics and intuitive praxis. These articles have topped the CiSE downloads from the CS and IEEE digital libraries for as long as this series has run.” The article by Beichl and Sullivan was included in a special issue celebrating the top ten algorithms of the 20th century.

Fernando Podio Receives Gene Milligan Award for Effective Committee Management

The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) awarded the Gene Milligan Award for Effective Committee Management to Fernando Podio, Computer Security Division, at the INCITS July Officers Symposium. The Gene Milligan Award is "an honorary award presented to no more than four INCITS members holding an officer position within an INCITS Subgroup. It recognizes individuals who, as officers, have provided outstanding leadership to the subgroup in its national and/or international work, have demonstrated proficiency in achieving consensus in the national and/or international arenas, and have followed the approved procedures in an exemplary fashion."

Wo Chang Cited for Work on MPEG

The International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) awarded a certificate of appreciation to Wo Chang, Information Access Division, for his contribution as project editor in the development of international standards. The standards are ISO/IEC 15938-9: 2005, Information technology, Multimedia content description interface – Part 9: Profiles and levels, and ISO/IEC TR 15938-11: 2005, Information technology, Multimedia content description interface – Part 11: MPEG-7 profile schemas. The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is the working group of ISO/IEC in charge of the development of standards for coded representation of digital audio and video; MPEG-7 is the standard for description and search of audio and visual content.

Fernando Podio Receives 2006 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Meritorious Service Award

Fernando Podio, Computer Security Division, was selected by ANSI as a recipient of the 2006 ANSI Meritorious Service Award in recognition of his leadership and dedication to ANSI and the domestic and international standards systems. The award citation states that “Fernando Podio, Computer Security Division, NIST, has achieved many successes in advancing the development, adoption and awareness of biometric standards. In his role as chair of both domestic and international standards-setting committees, he has demonstrated energy and dedication to the advancement of this emerging field and the fostering of a large and diverse field of subject matter experts.”

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Date created: 11/03/2005
Last updated: 08/13/07