Speaker Bios: VAC Consortium Meeting Spring 2008

Spring 2008 VAC Consortium Meeting Speaker Bios

Randy Barber, Open Source Center Keynote Speaker

Mr. Barber currently serves as Director, Emerging Media Group (EMG) for the DNI’s Open Source Center—appointed in June 2007. He is responsible for specialized open source collection, and exploitation of web enabled digital media sources to include social, mobile, citizen, and virtual gaming mediums. He serves as Community lead and mission manager for developing new technologies and methodologies for the exploitation and analysis of digital media, and catalyst for transforming the open source collection and analysis paradigm and architecture. Key EMG developments enable the Community to unearth intelligence from huge volumes of structured and unstructured publicly available data. EMG’s customer base extends from IC to policymaker to local law enforcement to clandestine and military operators. EMG’s business model is collaborative, built on partnerships with other USG organizations and the private sector transcending classification barriers.

Mr. Barber has Chaired several IC committees, including the Air Weapons Systems Subcommittee of WSSIC, the Interagency Target Analysis Group, and the National Special Communications Working Group. He has also represented his organization at key IC collection and strategy forums.

Mr. Barber graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1984 and a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland in 1986.

Joe C., CIA Capstone Speaker

Joe C. is a senior military analyst with the CIA's Emerging & Strategic Issues Team and is currently on rotation as a content manager and editor for the World Intelligence Review, the CIA’s premiere daily current intelligence publication. Joe has spent the majority of his career covering long-term and over-the-horizon worldwide security issues with different components of the Office of Transnational Issues. In the course of his duties he has specialized in various forms of collaborative analysis, including scenarios, red teaming, analytic gaming, and other types of advanced and structured analytic techniques, and is currently an Agency facilitator for these tools. Joe’s education includes Lafayette College, the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs for graduate work, and he is currently a student at the United States Naval War College.

Pamela Drew, Boeing Guest Speaker

Pamela Drew is Vice President and General Manager, Integrated Defense and Security Solutions (IDSS), part of the Advanced Systems group in Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) business unit. IDSS is responsible for horizontal integration across Boeing IDS and the best of industry to provide integrated capabilities and solutions for defense, homeland security, civil and commercial markets. IDSS recent program awards include SBInet, the U. S. Custom and Border Protection agency’s program to secure the 6000 miles of the U.S. Northern and Southern borders and a program to deploy a virtual security system for U.S. Embassies and Consulates world-wide.

Until January 2006, Drew served as Vice President in C3ISR Solutions (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Solutions). This organization provided end-to-end solutions that enhance, net-enable and integrate existing and future C3ISR systems. C3ISR Solutions included the major program areas of AWACS (U.S. and International programs), Airborne Early Warning & Control (737 AEW&C), and the UK’s Nimrod. It also included transformational communications programs, such as Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), and integrated, secure command and control programs, including Vigilare, the Australian Defense Force command and control system.

Rodney Giacomelli, Baltimore Police Department Law Enforcement Panel Member

Detective Lieutenant Rodney R. Giacomelli has been with the Baltimore Police Department for over 18 years, spending the last 6 1/2 in the Criminal Intelligence Section. In that assignment, he has been responsible for emergency preparedness planning, security for the Mayor, City Hall, Police HQ and high-risk events and the development, implementation and command of the Department's Intelligence Watch Center. He has a B.A. in political science from Loyola College.

Jim Holt, Microsoft Interoperability Workshop

Jim Holt has a Ph.D. in High Energy Physics. He has done research in experimental and theoretical Accelerator Physics in National Laboratories in Japan, Europe and in the United States. He has spent time in the financial industry developing and architecting real-time financial data delivery systems. Presently he is working at Microsoft as the architect of the Public Safety Initiative project.

Joe Kielman, Department of Homeland Security DHS Representative

Joe Kielman serves as Science Advisor in the office of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology for DHS. He is Director of Research Futures for the Command, Control and Interoperability Division and serves as Acting Director for Transition for the Human Factors Division at the Science and Technology Directorate. Prior to joining DHS, Dr. Kielman worked for 20 years at the FBI. Joe has an undergraduate degree in Physics and graduate degrees in Biophysics and did his postdoctoral research in Genetics.

Richard May, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Law Enforcement Panel Moderator

Throughout his career, Dr. May has focused on designing new technologies and protocols to generate and interact with complex, massive data sets. Over the course of his career, Dr. May has conducted research in video and image processing, information visualization, virtual and mixed reality and visual analytics. In the early 1990s, he transitioned his research from visualizing science to interacting with the visualizations, to better understand the complex nature of the problems being studied. This new focus led to research in both the logical and physical aspects of interacting with electronic information and eventually to looking at analytical processes and visual analytics.

As Deputy Director for the Department of Homeland Security's National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC), Dr. May develops opportunities to transfer technologies to meet the needs of regional preparedness experts and coordinates visual analytics research across government and academic partners. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Washington State University and his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington.

Jeffrey G. Morrison, IARPA Guest Speaker

Dr. Morrison is currently on assignment to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the Analyst Workspace Exploitation (A-SpaceX) program manager for IARPA from the U.S. Navy, SPAWARSYSCEN-SD. He has been a scientist with the U.S Navy since 1990, where he works in the fields of cognition, decision support, advanced automation, and human factors.

Dr. Morrison has been instrumental in a number of DARPA & ONR projects. He was assigned to ONR as a project officer where he assisted in managing for the DARPA Augmented Cognition (AugCog) Program, the Fast Connectivity for Coalition Agents Project (Fast C2AP), and the Predictive Analysis for Naval Deployment Activity (PANDA) program. At the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center – San Diego, Dr. Morrison served as principle investigator for the Command 21 and Tactical Decision-making Under Stress (TADMUS) projects sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Bill Ribarsky, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Guest Speaker

William Ribarsky is the Bank of America Endowed Chair in Information Technology at UNC Charlotte and the founding director of the Charlotte Visualization Center. He is Principal Investigator for the DHS SouthEast Regional Visualization and Analytics Center. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cincinnati.

His research interests include visual analytics; 3D multimodal interaction; bioinformatics visualization; virtual environments; visual reasoning; and interactive visualization of large-scale information spaces. Dr. Ribarsky is the former Chair and a current Director of the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee. He is also a member of the Steering Committees for the IEEE Visualization Conference and the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference, the leading international conferences in their fields. He was an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics and is currently an Editorial Board member for IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications. Dr. Ribarsky co-founded the Eurographics/IEEE visualization conference series (now called EG/IEEE EuroVis) and led the effort to establish the current Virtual Reality Conference series. In 2007, he will be general co-chair of the IEEE Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Symposium.

Dr. Ribarsky has published over 110 scholarly papers, book chapters, and books. He has received competitive research grants and contracts from NSF, ARL, ARO, DHS, ONR, EPA, AFOSR, DARPA, NASA, NIMA, and several companies.

Pam Scanlon, ARJIS Law Enforcement Panel Member

Pam has over 20 years experience in law enforcement. In her current position Pam is the Executive Director for ARJIS (Automated Regional Justice Information System). The ARJIS System is an integrated justice enterprise network and system used by over 71 local, state, and federal criminal justice agencies throughout San Diego and Imperial Counties. ARJIS serves as the information hub for the region’s public safety incidents, photographs, gang information, calls for service, officer notification, etc, accessed by over 11,000 justice personnel over a secure intranet.

ARJIS utilizes operational and technical standards to build interfaces to seamlessly share this information in a real time basis. ARJIS is currently engaged in an initiative to share data between California and Arizona, and a wireless project to share critical data and photos among all justice and homeland security agencies in the region. Pam participates on the California CLETS SSPS (Standing Strategic Planning Subcommittee), the Justice Standards Initiative for XML, is the President of IACP/LEIM (Law Enforcement Information Managers) Board, a member of the JISP Board (Justice Information Sharing Professionals), and on the NCJA (National Criminal Justice Advisory Council) Board of Directors.

Prior to her position in ARJIS, Pam was the manager for the Data Systems Division at the San Diego Police Department. Pam has a degree in Public Administration from Oregon State University.

Jim Thomas, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory NVAC Director

Jim Thomas is director of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Visualization and Analytics Center and a Laboratory Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. With a career spanning 30 years of contributions in information technology, Jim specializes in the research, design and implementation of innovative information and scientific visualization, multimedia and human computer interaction technology. At PNNL, he has established investment directions for information technology, led major technology initiatives, mentored staff and spearheaded several major research programs.

Mike Tobia, NY/JY Port Authority Law Enforcement Panel Member

Michael A. Tobia is a 27-year veteran in law enforcement community. He is currently assigned as the Commanding Officer of the Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan located on 42^nd and 8^th Ave. His prior assignments with the Port Authority Police Department included the Office of Counter-Terrorism unit, specializing in risk assessment, emergency operational planning and community awareness. He was appointed the Commanding Officer of the Police Academy for a two-year period following the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and enhanced recruit training to meet the demands of the post 9/11 environment. Inspector Tobia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from John Jay University of criminal justice, a Master’s degree in Education from Seton Hall University, and completed his Education Specialist Degree (EDS). On November 1, 2007 he completed his Doctorate degree. Inspector Tobia is also an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Certified Protection Professional by the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS). He has extensive Command field experience in a number of emergency incidents most notably the February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Inspector Lance Valcour, Canadian Police Research Centre Guest Speaker

Inspector Lance Valcour is a 31 year veteran of the Ottawa Police Service and is currently seconded to the Canadian Police Research Centre to lead its national interoperability program.

Lance is an internationally recognized expert on interoperability and sits on numerous organizations and boards across both Canada and the United States. These include the International Association of Chiefs of Police LEIM Section, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Informatics Committee, National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (USA) and the Canadian Interoperability Technology Interest Group (as its Program Manager/Executive Director).

He has extensive Incident Command and Leadership experience having managed numerous major events including Canada Day celebrations, the 2004 Bush Presidential Visit, public order events, tactical incidents and natural disaster responses in the National Capital Region. He has traveled extensively across Canada, the United States, United Kingdom and Caribbean where he has conducted research into various public safety issues.

Edward Waigand, FBI Interoperability Workshop

Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Edward C. Waigand currently serves as the Data Standards Manager in the Law Enforcement National Data Exchange (N-DEx) Unit, Intelligence, N-DEx, and Global Operations Section (INGOS), Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. SSA Waigand is responsible for N-DEx data standards, which include development and maintenance of the N-DEx Data Set and Information Exchange Package Documentation. He is also Project Manager for the N-DEx Prototype and the N-DEx Cost Model Project. SSA Waigand and the Data Standards Team participate in numerous information sharing initiatives, to include GJXDM, NIEM, and LEXS development committees, working groups and task forces. He has also served on the LEITSC RMS Working Group, the SEARCH Privacy Focus Group, and the IJIS Institute N-DEx/NIBRS Committee.

Prior to reporting to CJIS in March 2005, SSA Waigand served as a Special Agent in Laredo, Texas, and Waco, Texas. SSA Waigand, a former Marine, possesses a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Science from the U.S. Naval Academy and a Master of Arts degree in Business from Webster University.