Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Larry Lynn yesterday announced the winners of the 1996 DARPA
Achievement Awards. These awards, which have been presented
since 1985, are designed to reward and encourage excellence among
scientists and engineers working with and for DARPA.
Ronald R. Coifman, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.,
received the DARPA Achievement Award for Sustained Excellence by
a Contractor for his technical innovation, ability to transition
his work into critical Defense Department applications and his
work's impact on the DoD. During Coifman's seven years of work
in DARPA's Applied and Computational Mathematics Program, he has
shown how modern mathematics can be effectively applied to solve
engineering problems. His compression algorithms were the basis
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's automatic fingerprint
identification system. Another of Coifman's developments led to
breakthroughs in radar detection and classification. Coifman
also founded a small company to develop software products using
his newly developed mathematical algorithms, allowing his
theoretical breakthroughs to transition very quickly into solving
real-world Defense problems.
The DARPA Award for Significant Technical Achievement was
presented to George M. Whitesides, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass., for his pioneering work in molecular self-assembly for
micro- and nano-fabrication. This technique, in which molecules
are designed so that they spontaneously aggregate into desired
structures, holds great promise for low cost, high quality
fabrication for microelectronics, optics, microelectromechanical
systems, and biosensors. Whitesides originated this important
new technique that has been widely adopted and is now being used
in other laboratories.
Col. Edward C. Mahen, U.S. Air Force, received the
Achievement Award for Outstanding Performance by a DARPA Program
Manager for his leadership role on the Bosnia Command and Control
Augmentation Initiative. Mahen leads an Integrated Product Team
made up of representatives from over 15 organizations to provide
badly needed bandwidth to improve
the flow of information and intelligence between sources in the
U.S. and Europe and to those furthest down-range in support of
Operation Joint Endeavor. Within two months after project start,
Mahen's program achieved an initial operating capability to
disseminate Predator Unmanned Air Vehicle information to four
modes in Europe. In presenting the award, Lynn said, The
technology put into place by Ed Mahen's team is providing the
warfighter with unparalleled capabilities. It is a superb test of
program management skill to bring so many organizations together
and provide an operational capability in so short a timeframe.
His efforts are making a difference.
J.A. Woollam Co. received the DARPA Award for Outstanding
Performance by a Small Business Contractor for their work
implementing in situ real-time crystal growth control using
ellipsometry. Ellipsometry, which measures the change in
polarization of a light beam from a multi-layered material
structure, is used to precisely control the growth of electronic
materials. This technique lowers costs, increases yield and
improves device and circuit performance. Woollam Co. has
developed a specialized instrument and software to monitor
molecular beam epitaxial (MBE) growth of crystalline
semiconductors in situ, and is also active in developing controls
from semiconductors devices created using metal organic vapor
phase epitaxy. The many years of interaction with DARPA and
other DoD organizations has added substantially to the
improvement of various microelectronic and optoelectronic
components critical to future military systems.
Edmund Zelnio, technical director of the Combat Information
Division, in the Air Force Wright Laboratory's Avionics
Directorate, was recognized for his performance as Outstanding
DARPA Agent. Zelnio's technical leadership, exceptional
technical vision and excellence, and team-building innovation has
established his organization as a national center of excellence
for automatic target recognition research, development and system
application. As agent for DARPA's Moving and Stationary Target
Acquisition and Recognition program to develop sensors to detect
and classify targets in shallow-hide, Zelnio's efforts have kept
the program on schedule and budget. Zelnio's leadership and
technical skills have allowed him to succeed where other
automatic target recognition projects have failed. His
substantial progress has led to the planned transition of ATR
into several key Defense weapons systems, such as the Joint
Surveillance and Targeting System (Joint STARS), U-2R, and Low
Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared System for Night
(LANTIRN).
Awards were presented in Atlanta, Ga., during ARPATech'96,
DARPA's eighteenth system and technology symposium.
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