Speaker Bios

Keynote Speaker
Dr. Marti Hearst, UC Berkeley School of Information

Dr. Marti Hearst is an associate professor in the School of Information UC Berkeley, with an affiliate appointment in the Computer Science Division. Her primary research interests are user interfaces and visualization for information retrieval, empirical computational linguistics, and text data mining. She received BA, MS, and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and she was a Member of the Research Staff at Xerox PARC from 1994 to 1997. Prof. Hearst is on the editorial boards of ACM Transactions on Information Systems and ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction and was formerly on the boards of Computational Linguistics and IEEE Intelligent Systems, and was the program co-chair of HLT-NAACL '03 and SIGIR '99. She has received an NSF CAREER award, an IBM Faculty Award, an Okawa Foundation Fellowship, and two student-initiated Excellence in Teaching awards.

Nancy Chinchor, CIA

Nancy Chinchor is a Research Scientist in the Analytic and Behavioral Sciences Group in the Advanced Technologies and Programs Office for the Central Intelligence Agency. Prior to joining the CIA in 2002, Dr. Chinchor worked for 12 years evaluating information extraction technology for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Advanced Research and Development Activity. Her work was foundational in establishing information extraction as a field in Computational Linguistics. Preceding her contribution to computational linguistics, Nancy worked as a computer programmer on a variety of defense and commercial products including the brake system for the Washington, D.C. subway cars. She has an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University and a graduate degree in Linguistics from Brown University. Her postdoctoral research focused on the Linguistics of American Sign Language.

Jeffrey R. Cooper, SAIC

Jeffrey R. Cooper is Vice President for Technology, Chief Scientist of SAIC Strategies, and Director, Center for Information Strategy and Policy (CISP), at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). He has 40 years experience in defense and policy analysis, beginning as an intern at the Hudson Institute in 1964, and has been at SAIC since 1994. He received his undergraduate and graduate education at The Johns Hopkins University, where he was later Professorial Lecturer in Arms Control and Defense Analysis at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In addition to long-standing focus on strategic analysis and military transformation, his core interest is using information to improve intelligence analysis, decision making, C2, and operational effectiveness in order to enhance U.S. national security. He is a founding member of the Highlands Forum, an OSD-sponsored program to identify cutting-edge technological developments that affect national security. More... Less...

For the past several years, Mr. Cooper‘s focus has been largely on intelligence matters, with particular emphasis on improving analytic effectiveness. He recently served on the Presidential Commission on Future Intelligence Capabilities (Silberman-Robb Commission) as a Professional Staff Member and has been actively involved in work on the Revolution in Intelligence Affairs and Intelligence Transformation. He created the Analytic Pathologies methodology used to identify the key sources of analytic failure and is a member of the PARC team under contract to ARDA on the Novel Intelligence from Massive Data (NIMD) Program to develop advanced analytic tools and methods for all-source intelligence analysts. Mr. Cooper was a member of the technical experts panel of the American Bar Association’s Conference on CounterTerrorism Technology and Privacy in June 2004. Also in 2004, he participated in the NIC’s Project 2020 and chaired the Senior Advisory Group supporting SAIC’s work for DIA’s Human Factors Assessment Center.

Mr. Cooper previously completed studies for the Air Force on implications of Force Transformation on nuclear forces and for the Office of Force Transformation on developing an assessment framework for Transformation. He had previously led a research project on survivability of the New Triad and he participated in studies of alternative deterrence and strategic concepts for DTRA. He completed a project for DARPA’s Command Post of the Future (CPoF) Program on enhancing human decision-making by overcoming systemic cognitive errors, biases, and illusions.

Mr. Cooper’s other work while at SAIC has focused on the impacts of the Information Revolution on International Affairs, including strategic, policy and operational aspects of the Revolution in Military Affairs and Information Warfare. Mr. Cooper has also explored the broader implications of the “Information Revolution” for advanced operational concepts, organizational structures, and command and control relationships in the commercial and non-defense government sectors as well. He has supported the J–6 Director, the Naval Doctrine Command, CINCACOM, DIA, N6, AF/XOX, and CINCACOM in developing advanced C2 and operational concepts; has served as an advisor on operational and command concepts to MCCDC; and developed new methods for strategic planning for AFSPACECOM. Mr. Cooper developed “Joint Coherent Operations” for CINCACOM which still remains the core command concept at JFCOM. He has been a frequent lecturer at the National Defense University and the Navy’s Strategic Studies Group on a variety of defense-related topics; and he was a Member of the 1997 Defense Science Board Summer Study on Transnational Threats, the 1997-98 DSB Task Force on Nuclear Deterrence, and the 1998 DSB Task Force on Tritium Production. Mr. Cooper served as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the 2001 Yale Stimson Graduate Seminar Program in International Affairs.

Mr. Cooper had previously served as a member of the White House Staff where he helped create the National Energy Plan and the Department of Energy; and as Assistant to the Secretary of Energy, James R. Schlesinger, from 1977-1979, he had policy and oversight responsibilities for nuclear weapons development, intelligence, and civil high technology programs at DoE. In 1979 while serving at the Department of Energy, he became a career Charter Member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and was awarded the Secretary of Energy’s Distinguished Service Medal. Mr. Cooper had previously served in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Federal Energy Agency, the White House Federal Energy Office, and on committee staff for the U.S. Senate. While at ACDA, he was a member of the NSSM 191 Strategic Sufficiency and NSDM 242 Nuclear Targeting Studies, the ABRES Ad Hoc Review Committee, and was responsible for policy criteria for follow-on strategic force negotiations. He was a long time consultant to both Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Institute for Defense Analyses. Mr. Cooper has been a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Yale and a Professorial Lecturer at the John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Aris Pappas, Microsoft

Aris Pappas is Deputy Director of the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments. The institute was founded in September 2004 to identify large-scale and difficult problems in the government environment and link them to Microsoft’s vast research and development potential.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Pappas was co-founder and vice-president of IntelligenceEnterprises, LLC, a consulting firm supporting a broad range of customers ranging from the space-based imagery industry to the Department of Homeland Security. He is also a member of a select study group commissioned to review the performance of the Intelligence Community with respect to Iraq.

His principal professional experience is 34 years of Federal service, six with the Army and 28 with the Central Intelligence Agency, retiring as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service. At the CIA, he held a number of positions in both the Intelligence (analytic) and Operations Directorates. He was an Assistant National Intelligence Officer during the first Gulf War, and later Executive Secretary of the Director of Central Intelligence's (DCI) Intelligence Science Board. After a year-long tour at the FBI, Mr. Pappas established the DCI’s Homeland Security Staff. More... Less...

Mr. Pappas holds a Bachelor's Degree from The City College of New York, a Master's Degree from Boston University, both in International Relations, and is a graduate of the US Navy War College. He is an avid movie buff and holds a Commercial Pilot’s license with an instrument rating. His other hobbies involve scale modeling: HO trains and aircraft. Mr. Pappas is the Chief Judge of the International Plastic Modelers Society, has models on display in the National Air & Space Museum, and contributes to various hobby journals. He is married to Eva, and they have two daughters, Lara and Christina, attending medical school and studying fashion merchandising, respectively.

Troy Pearsall, In-Q-Tel

Troy M. Pearsall is Vice President of Technology at In-Q-Tel and has overall responsibility for technology assessment, Visionary Solution Architects (technology experts in various fields) and solution transfer staff and process. In addition to providing thought leadership on established and emerging areas of technology, Troy brings diverse experience in technology development and insertion to In-Q-Tel. Before assuming the role of VP, Technology, Troy served as a Visionary Solutions Architect on the Technology team, championing investments in the areas of information visualization and visual analytics. Troy's career has included management roles in Fortune 500 and startup companies in varied industries such as optical, strategic communications, government contracting, publishing and transportation.

Before his arrival at In-Q-Tel, Troy served as Chief Technology Officer at Eyeweb, Inc, a venture capital funded start up company in the optical industry. Prior to Eyeweb, Troy was Director of Internet Technology and Information Systems at Triad Communications, a private strategic communications firm. During the course of his career, Troy has held management or staff positions at Litton-TASC (Northrop-Grumman), Penguin USA, NJ Transit, and Unisys. Troy earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Ramana Rao, Inxight Software

Ramana Rao is Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Inxight Software, a spinout from Xerox PARC. Across its ten year history, Ramana has developed, managed, and evangelized Inxight's strategic vision, products, and technology as well as played key roles in funding, marketing, and sales. Previously at PARC for ten years, Ramana performed pioneering work in intelligent information access, digital libraries, information visualization, and user interfaces. His work includes over 25 patent filings and numerous refereed research papers. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Antonio Sanfilippo, PNNL

Dr. Antonio Sanfilippo is Chief Scientist in the Information Sciences and Engineering Division at PNNL. His research focus is on Computational Linguistics and Knowledge Technologies with reference to Bioinformatics, and Cognitive, Social and Behavioral Sciences. During 2004 and 2005, Dr. Sanfilippo led the establishment of the Motivation and Intent thrust as one of four research areas in the Threat Awareness Portfolio within the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security.

Prior to joining PNNL, Dr. Sanfilippo held positions as Director of Research Strategy and Planning at Textology Inc., Director of Text Mining at SRA International, and Director of Advanced Development at LingoMotors Inc. From May 1998 to August 2000, he served as a senior consultant for the Human Language Technologies Unit within the Information Society Directorate at the European Commission. While at SHARP Laboratories of Europe from 1992 to 1998, he supervised linguistic development activities in the Information Technology group, led the development of new products in the area of Machine Translation and Information Management, and acted as principal investigator on projects funded by the European Union. Prior to joining SHARP, Dr. Sanfilippo worked as a Research Associate at the Centre for Cognitive Science (University of Edinburgh, UK) and the Computer Laboratory (University of Cambridge, UK). Dr. Sanfilippo holds an M.Phil. in Anthropological Linguistics from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the University of Edinburgh (UK).

John G. Voeller, Black & Veatch

John Voeller is a member of the corporate management team at Black & Veatch and is responsible for visioning strategic technology directions. In October 2003, he took a year off to accept an ASME Fellowship in the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the executive office of the President and has been asked to continue this work under contract through the ASME ITI, LLC for clients such as DHS, OSTP, DARPA and several Washington firms. He is the principal architect of POWRTRAK, the automated engineering system of Black & Veatch that was used to build over 500 power facilities around the world. Voeller also serves as CEO and president of Data Discovery, Inc., which sells his recursive, search technology; CEO and president of General Integration Corp., specializing in highly collaborative environments; and CEO and president of Nuhands Corp., a firm specializing in products for aiding senior citizens and the handicapped.

Voeller has been the technical leader of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological Technology Alliance (CBRTA), working on advanced technology to deal with terrorist threats with 13 companies including Honeywell, 3M, Motorola, Lucent, General Dynamics, Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, Veridian, Cargill, Becton Dickinson, Syracuse Research Corp. and RAE. He has received many awards and recognitions, including the CIO Enterprise Value Award for 1997 from CIO magazine; the Award of Excellence from Engineering News Record magazine for 1998, “Their Highest Honor For Most Significant Individual Achievement In the Construction Industry”; the Ed Forrest Award For Highest Achievement in Engineering Automation for 2000; and the CIO Premier 100 Award as one of the top 100 CIOs in the US for 2000. Voeller holds a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and is a registered professional engineer in the states of Kansas and Michigan.

Richard Weller, PNNL

Dr. Weller is a Senior Program Manager involved in national security activities related to weapons of mass destruction. His primary focus is biological weapons nonproliferation and dual-use technologies. He received his doctorate in veterinary medicine from Washington State University and joined Battelle (PNNL) in 1980. Since 1996 he has provided technical assistance to the Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Interagency Working Group (IWG) on matters related to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), in particular, disease surveillance, unusual disease outbreaks, zoonoses, biosecurity, animal and plant diseases, and DOE biotechnology assets. More... Less...

Dr. Weller served as the technical advisor to the U. S. delegation to the Ad Hoc Group of States Parties to the BTWC meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, and served in the same capacity during the Fifth Review Conference of the Parties to the BTWC. He continues to provide technical expertise to the DOE and IWG as a member of U.S. delegations to BTWC experts group and intercessional meetings in Geneva and foreign capitals. Dr. Weller also served as project manager for a biological weapons related regional security project in Central Asia, and regularly consults with CTR/DTRA and the Department of State to help coordinate BW nonproliferation programs in the Former Soviet Union.

He also serves as Deputy Program Manager for the DOE Initiatives for Proliferation Program at PNNL where he is responsible for a biotechnology portfolio containing nearly 10 projects involving many former WMD (CW/BW) scientists in the Russia Federation, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Armenia. Dr. Weller supports Department of Homeland Security/National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) programs by providing technical support to the Biodefense Knowledge Center program for NBACC, and leading a special study on Foot and Mouth Disease. He is board certified by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine (1980) and Oncology (1987), and holds adjunct faculty positions in the College of Veterinary Medicine at both Washington State University and Tuskegee University, and is a lecturer at the University of Washington’s Jackson School for International Studies on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) detection and proliferation.