Newswise — WASHINGTON (April 27, 2015)—How do you predict a pirate attack? Or a radical change in a global water flow? You ask the winners of this year’s Arthur S. Flemming Awards. These innovators are standout government workers who are achieving remarkable feats. Other winners developed Ebola vaccines and created leading programs to limit youth tobacco use.
The 67th annual Arthur S. Flemming Awards honors these and many other accomplishments of 12 such federal employees (listed in detail below) from agencies across the federal government. The awards are presented by the Arthur S. Flemming Commission and the George Washington University Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, in cooperation with the National Academy of Public Administration.
“This year's nominations for the Arthur S. Flemming Award were some of the highest quality we have had from across the government since the George Washington University began sponsoring the program in the 1990s,” said Peter Williams, president of the Flemming Awards Commission. “The award has now been given to 660 awardees since 1948. We hope that this level of participation from all federal government agencies continues to grow in the coming years.”
Established by the Downtown Jaycees in 1948, the Flemming Awards honor outstanding federal employees with three to 15 years of federal service for their exceptional contributions to the federal government. Recipients are nominated by their federal agency and then selected from a pool of nominees through a competitive judging process. Awardees are selected based on their work performance and factors such as leadership, social equity support and their potential for continued excellence. The award is named after quintessential public servant Arthur S. Flemming, who served in government for more than six decades spanning seven administrations and including service as the secretary of health, education and welfare under President Eisenhower. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and passed away just two years later.
“Federal Management Systems, Inc., as the premier sponsor, extends its congratulations to the selected federal employees for their significant contributions to the various government sectors,” said Aubrey A. Stephenson, the company’s president. “We support the recognitions given to these worthy scholars who have been recognized by the Arthur S. Flemming Awards.”
A ceremony honoring the award winners will take place on June 6 at GW.
This year’s award recipients, organized by award category, include:
Applied Science and Engineering
Martha Anderson, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of AgricultureDr. Anderson is internationally known for her work combining information from multiple satellite-based earth imaging systems to enable mapping of water use and crop stress from farm field to global scales. Her mapping algorithms have been used for drought early warnings across North America.
Gayle Hagler, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyDr. Hagler initiated the Village Green Project, a community-based research effort to demonstrate real-time air monitoring technology, engage the public to learn about local air quality, and collect high-quality data for research. The project developed a highly efficient, solar-powered monitoring platform that incorporates research-grade environmental sensors into a park bench structure that can be located anywhere.
James Hansen, U.S. Naval Research Lab, U.S. NavyDr. Hansen focuses on the science of prediction, using uncertainty estimates to improve human forecasts and influence Navy actions. His Piracy Attack Rick Surface increases the safety of commercial shipping in the Indian Ocean by predicting where pirates will likely operate. His Tropical Cyclone Sortie program calculates when and how ship s and aircraft should evaluate areas threatened by severe storms.
Basic Science
Daniel Hussey, Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and TechnologyDr. Hussey is a pioneer of neutron imaging. He developed a highly sensitive neutron phase imaging technique with applications in semiconductor, biology, geology and alternate energy research. The techniques he helped develop are becoming industry standards used by most fuel-cell and battery manufacturers.
Matthew Rodell, Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationDr. Rodell is recognized for his research on remote sensing and numerical modeling of the water cycle. He led a multi-institutional team to perform an analysis of the state of the global water and energy cycles during the first decade of the millennium. The resulting data serves as a baseline for hydroclimatic variability studies, climate change predictions and Earth system model evaluations.
Leadership and/or Management
Christopher Jefferson, Office of Space Launch, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, U.S. Air ForceMaj. Jefferson led satellite vehicle operations for the National Reconnaissance Office. He is integral to the success of the world’s largest spacecraft processing facility, which is expected to service the U.S. intelligence community for the next 30 years. He also led the first NRO partnership with the Air Force and SpaceX.
Charles Romine, Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and TechnologyDr. Romine is a global leader in information technology standards. His efforts have led to several significant U.S. information technology initiatives including the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science.
Mitchell Zeller, Food and Drug AdministrationMr. Zeller is recognized for his work to protect the public through the regulation of tobacco products in the U.S., setting policy and precedent that have national and global implications. Mr. Zeller built the firstever nationwide enforcement program to reduce youth access to tobacco, worked to issue a historic regulation to bring all tobacco products under the FDA's jurisdiction and led the FDA's launch of nationwide youth tobacco prevention campaigns.
Elliott Zenick, Environmental Protection AgencyMr. Zenick led the legal team for the EPA’s Clean Power Plan to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. He assembled and managed one of the EPA’s largest-ever legal teams. His team helped defeat six court cases attempting to block the EPA from issuing the plan.
Legal Achievement
Arthur Catterall, Department of JusticeMr. Catterall manages complex tax cases. He demystifies complex tax shelters and novel tax issues He helped achieve a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in United State v. Woods, which affected $4 billion of tax misstatements. His efforts have saved the U.S. treasury hundreds of millions of dollars.
Social Science, Clinical Trials and Translational Research
Jennita Reefhuis, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionDr. Reefhuis works toward the protection and promotion of the health of pregnant women and babies. She contributed to the post-9/11 anthrax investigations and led the investigation of the association between cochlear implants and meningitis in children.
Jason Regules, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, U.S. ArmyLt. Col. Regules joined the Malaria Vaccine Branch at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research after a deployment in Iraq. He led a groundbreaking study that examined a fractional dose approach that resulted in achieving 87 percent protection against malaria, with 90 percent protection at eight months following vaccine boost. Lt. Col. Regules also initiated the first-ever human vaccine trial of the rVSV-Ebola vaccine.
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