Cmdr Yvette Davids fills warfighting readiness role for the Navy

Coronado, CA – Cmdr Yvette M. Davids has assumed duties as the military executive assistant to the executive director of Naval Surface Forces (SURFOR) at command HQ at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. Davids is assisting the director in his task of improving the warfighting readiness of surface ships.

Davids brings more than nineteen years of naval experience to the newly established post. Before reporting to the Naval Surface Forces staff, she served as commanding officer of the guided missile frigate USS Curts, homeported in San Diego, CA. Under Davids’ command, the frigate completed
a successful deployment to the Persian Gulf with the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Davids graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis, MD) in 1989 with a degree in oceanography. Her new post, she reflects, calls for a positive outlook, optimism, hard work, integrity, and “being able to look at the big picture of the needs of the boss and the Navy.

“I’m fortunate to be assigned to this position.”

Women of Vision awards honor prominent techies

Palo Alto, CA – The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) presented the 2009 Women of Vision awards this April. The awards honor women who made significant contributions to technology in three categories: leadership, innovation and social impact. Winners are selected from a field of highly qualified women in technology professions in industry, academia, NGOs and government.

“The winners of this year’s awards have earned the recognition because they have positively impacted the world through their work with technology and women in technology,” says ABI CEO Dr Telle Whitney. “These women are all leaders in their fields as well as strong role models for women of all generations.”

Winner of the leadership award was Mitchell Baker, chair of Mozilla Corp, for her work leading the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to openness and innovation on the Internet.

Yuqing Gao, senior manager of IBM’s T. J. Watson research center, received the innovation award for her work in speech-to-speech translation.

The social impact award went to Jan Cuny, program director of the National Science Foundation, for the NSF’s “Broadening participation in computing” program to help women and underrepresented minorities find careers in technology.

Corporate sponsors of the event include Lockheed Martin, Cisco, NetApp and SAP. For more information visit www.anitaborg.org.

Black engineers of the year announced at BEYA STEM

Baltimore, MD – The annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA) STEM global competitiveness conference was held this February. At the conference, seminars and workshops offered information on topics affecting African American technology professionals: career advancement, diversity programs and specialized industry updates.

A career fair brought engineers, scientists and students together with employers. Completing the three-day event, the BEYA awards ceremony recognized the achievement of African American engineering leaders. The awards and their winners include:

Black Engineer of the Year: Dr Wanda Austin, president and CEO, the Aerospace Corp.

Career achievement-government: Lloyd Reshard, chief, flight vehicles integration branch, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

Most promising engineer-industry: Alana Tyler, senior ME II, Raytheon.

Special Recognition for career achievement: Charles Henry, VP, Verizon Telecom, IT Revenue Assurance; and Trena Lilly, project manager, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

For a complete list of winners, see www.beya.org.

Doyle Beneby named senior VP of Exelon Power

Kennett Square, PA – At the end of March, Doyle N. Beneby became senior VP of both Exelon Power and Exelon Generation. He is responsible for the generation of about 8,000 mw in five states for the electric utility.

Beneby was most recently VP of ops for Exelon Power. He has also been Exelon’s VP of construction and maintenance and general manager for the Exelon Power peak demand power plants.

Before Exelon Beneby worked for Consumers Energy in Michigan, as site general manager of the Karn/Weadock electric generating complex.

He joined Consumers Energy in 2001 after seventeen years at Florida Power & Light. He has an engineering degree from Montana Technical College and an MBA from the University of Miami, FL.

Beneby is also executive sponsor of Exelon’s African American Members Association East.

Sandia researchers win INCITE grant

Albuquerque, NM – Sandia National Laboratories researchers Mike Heroux and Laura Frink received a 2009 Department of Energy (DoE) Innovative and Novel Computational Impact of Theory and Experiment (INCITE) multiyear grant of one million processor hours on Oak Ridge National Lab’s Cray XT machines. They expect to use the time to produce high-fidelity simulations of complex biological membranes.

Their work targets better understanding of the role of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), an innate part of the human immune system. Heroux and Frink plan to simulate a wide variety of AMP geometries and chemistries, varying the peptides’ energies and positions relative to simulated membranes to better understand peptide function. The goal is to understand how diseases penetrate the lipid bilayers that protect human cells, potentially enabling new treatments.

INCITE award winners are selected by DoE’s office of advanced scientific computing.

Vets with hearing loss welcome at RIT/NTID

Rochester, NY – Hearing loss is the leading cause of disability claims for military folks serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the fall of 2009 a group of vets with hearing losses will attend RIT/NTID to take advantage of the school’s access services. Classroom captioning, sign-language interpreters and note-taking services will help them study for bachelors and graduate degrees.

“It makes sense for us to welcome the men and women serving our country who could benefit from the education and access services we offer,” says NTID President Alan Hurwitz. “Our talented faculty and staff have experience helping those who have suffered a sudden hearing loss. We feel that RIT/NTID is a perfect option for vets seeking to continue their educations, and we are happy to help the men and women who have already sacrificed so much to serve our country.”

The first veterans are expected to begin classes this fall. As many as ten vets could be admitted each year. Check out www.rit.edu/ntid/veterans to learn more about the program.

Albany Molecular Research names Dr Junan Guo senior director

Albany, NY – Junan Guo, PhD has joined Albany Molecular Research, Inc (AMRI) as senior director, analytical and quality services. Guo will oversee all domestic analytical chemistry, pre-formulation and formulation, QA and regulatory affairs efforts. This includes developing analytical methods of testing the purity of clinical trial candidates and commercial products manufactured at AMRI.

Before joining AMRI Guo was director of analytical development at Patheon. He managed a scientific staff of about 170 at multiple locations, responsible for supporting contract dosage for development and manufacturing services.

Before Patheon, Guo worked at Genpharm in Toronto, Canada in analytical R&D and technology transfer. He holds a PhD in physical organic chemistry from the University of Western Ontario, an MS in medicinal chemistry from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, China and a BS in chemistry from Beijing Normal University.

AMRI provides scientific services, products and technologies focused on improving the quality of life. The company works on drug discovery and development projects and manufactures active ingredients and pharmaceutical intermediates for many leading healthcare companies.

BDPA Boston MetroWest names new CIO

Boston, MA – In late January Robert L. Graham became CIO of BDPA’s Boston MetroWest chapter. Graham has a depth of professional experience in application integration and database design, implementation and utilization including both consulting and in-house experience. He will manage the creation and development of strategy and support systems and applications for the BDPA chapter.

“The MetroWest BDPA chapter welcomes Bob to this extremely important position as we revitalize ourselves,” says Rod Flakes, chapter president. For more information on the Boston chapter, see www.bdpametrowest.org.

NASA names Fellows

Pasadena, CA – In February, NASA announced its 2009 astronomy and astrophysics Fellows, recipients of the 2009 Einstein and Sagan fellowships. These post-doctoral appointments let young researchers conduct independent research at institutions around the country.

“The new Fellows are among the best and brightest young astronomers in the world,” says Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics division at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC. “They already have contributed significantly to studies of how the universe works, the origin of our cosmos and whether we are alone in the cosmos.

“The fellowships will serve as a springboard for scientific leadership in the years to come, and as an inspiration for the next generation of students and early career researchers.”

The Sagan fellowships were created in 2008 to support
five scientists whose research is connected with NASA’s exoplanet exploration program. The program seeks to discover and characterize planetary systems and Earth-like planets around other stars. The NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology and JPL administer this program. The recipients include Subo Dong, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; John Johnson, University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy; and Eliza Miller-Ricci, University of California, Santa Cruz. For more information, see nexsci.caltech.edu/sagan/fellowship.shtml.

The Fellows in the Einstein program conduct research broadly related to the mission of NASA’s program on the physics of the cosmos. Its science goals include understanding the origin and destiny of the universe, the nature of gravity, phenomena near black holes, and extreme states of matter. The Chandra X-ray Center (Cambridge, MA) administers the Einstein Fellowships for NASA. Recipients include Tamara Bogdanovic, Rodrigo Fernandez, Eduardo Rozo and Aurora Simionescu. For more info see cxc.harvard.edu/fellows.

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