Biographies of Committee Members
Robert L. Popp, Co-Chair, is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of NSI, Inc., a small business composed of a premier group of nationally recognized scientists, methodologists, and analysts that specializes in providing innovative social science solutions to complex problems for clients predominantly in the defense, intelligence, and national security realm. Prior to founding NSI, Dr. Popp served for 5 years as a senior government executive within the Department of Defense: 1 year at the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts, where he oversaw a portfolio of Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration programs focused on information assurance, multilevel security, C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and homeland security; and 4 years at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as Deputy of the Information Exploitation Office (IXO) and Information Awareness Office (IAO). At DARPA/IAO, he oversaw a portfolio of research and development (R&D) programs focused on information technology solutions for counterterrorism and foreign intelligence. At DARPA/IXO, he established a novel R&D thrust focused on applying quantitative and computational social science models and methods to do root-cause analysis of instability and conflict within weak and failing states. Dr. Popp has served on the Defense Science Board and the Army Science Board and is a senior associate for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also served as an unpaid consultant to the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Organizational Modeling: From Individuals to Societies. Dr. Popp has held senior positions with several defense prime contractors, including BBN Technologies, Aptima, and
ALPHATECH (now BAE). He holds two patents, has published many scholarly papers, and is an editor of Emergent Information Technologies and Enabling Policies for Counter-Terrorism, published in 2006 by Wiley-IEEE Press. He served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force in the 1980s as an aircraft maintenance technician of F-106 fighters and B-52 bombers. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut.
Michael J. Williams, Gen, USMC (Ret.), Co-Chair, is currently an independent consultant, having retired from the U.S. Marine Corps after 35 years of service. In his last position, he served as Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. His previous assignments include Deputy Chief of Staff, Programs and Resources, Headquarters, Marine Corps; Commander, Marine Corps Systems Command; Commanding General, Joint Task Force 160, a humanitarian relief effort for Haitian and Cuban migrants at Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba; Commander, 2d Force Service Support Group; Vice Director for Operational Plans and Interoperability, J-7; and Vice Director, Joint Staff for Military Education, The Joint Staff. General Williams was Commander, Marine Aircraft Group 26, and deployed to Saudi Arabia to participate in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. His personal decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal with gold star; Legion of Merit with gold star; Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V”; Meritorious Service Medal; Air Medal with Strike Flight Numerals “25” and bronze star; and Navy Commendation Medal with gold star and Combat “V.” General Williams is a former member of the Defense Science Board (DSB) and served as co-chair of the DSB Task Force on Deployment of Members of the National Guard and Reserves in the Global War on Terror. He holds master’s degrees from the University of Southern California and the College of Naval Warfare.
Peter A. Beling is an associate professor in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering at the University of Virginia, having joined the faculty there in 1993. Previously, he held positions at the Center for Naval Analyses, where he worked primarily on analyses of Marine Corps operations, and at IBM Almaden Research, where he studied algorithms for parallel and distributed optimization. Dr. Beling’s research interests are in the area of decision making in complex systems, with emphasis on Bayesian scoring models, machine learning, and mathematical optimization. His research has found application in a variety of domains, including reconnaissance and surveillance, education and training, and lender and consumer-credit decision making. Dr. Beling is the founder of the Financial Engineering Research Group at the University of Virginia, which is a focal point for research on the mathematical modeling and risk management aspects of consumer and retail credit. He is also active in the University of Virginia site of the Wireless Internet Center for Advanced Technology, which is an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center sponsored by the National Science Foundation. He has served as reviewer or editor for a number of academic
journals. Dr. Beling received his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of California, Berkeley.
Janis A. Cannon-Bowers is a research professor of the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida. She is currently the principal investigator on several efforts involved with the application of technology to the training for and execution of complex tasks. These efforts include developing and testing videogame technologies that will teach fundamental knowledge and skills to Navy recruits; investigating command decision making and teamwork on Navy submarines in order to make recommendations for enhanced training, information architecture, and displays; and investigating intelligent tutoring and scenario-based training strategies for Navy surface-ship training. Dr. Cannon-Bowers previously held the position of senior scientist for training systems for the U.S. Navy in a senior executive-level scientist position and reported directly to the Chief of Naval Operations. In this position, she provided advice to senior Navy leadership on how to best restructure the entire training enterprise and transform the Navy into a learning organization. Dr. Cannon-Bowers is an active researcher, with more than 125 scholarly publications and presentations. She serves on the editorial boards of several research journals, and is currently a member of the NRC Committee on Learning Science: Computer Games, Simulations, and Education. She earned both her M.A. and her Ph.D. degrees in industrial/organizational psychology at the University of South Florida.
Scott T. Grafton is a professor of psychology and director of the Brain Imaging Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he joined the faculty in 2006. The center uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetic stimulation, and high-density electroencephalography (EEG) to characterize the neural basis of goal-directed behavior. Dr. Grafton’s recent research projects include an initiative co-funded by the Army Research Office to develop fMRI methods of human expertise, individual subject differences, and learning. He was previously a research fellow in neuroimaging at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he developed methods for mapping human brain activity using positron emission tomography. With these methods he focused on brain plasticity during motor learning and the reorganization of the nervous system in the face of injury or neurodegeneration. He went on to develop brain imaging programs at the University of Southern California, Emory University, and Dartmouth College. He received his M.D. from the University of Southern California and completed a neurology residency at the University of Washington and a residency in nuclear medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Susan Hackwood is currently the executive director of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) and professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Riverside, where her research interests include electrical
engineering, signal processing, and cellular robotic systems, to name just a few. CCST is a not-for-profit corporation composed of 200 top science and technology leaders sponsored by the key academic and federal research institutions in California; it advises the state on all aspects of science and technology, including nanotechnology, stem cell research, intellectual property, climate change, energy, information technology, biotechnology, and technical workforce development and education. Dr. Hackwood has worked extensively with industry, academic, and government partnerships to identify policy issues of importance and is active in regional and state economic development. She is currently a member of the NRC’s Naval Studies Board and has served on other scientific boards and advisory committees. Dr. Hackwood is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received a Ph.D. in solid state ionics in 1979 from De Montfort University.
Stephan Kolitz, a distinguished member of the technical staff in the Mission Systems Division, has been on the technical staff at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory since 1989. He continues to be the lead for the development of new technologies and for their implementation into practice to solve operational problems for complex systems across a wide range of domains, including C2 (command and control), ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), irregular warfare, transportation and logistics, sensor data fusion, information exploitation, reliability and safety analysis, and autonomous mission planning. His recent and current projects include the following: command and control of large-scale sensor systems; force protection against an asymmetric threat; modeling, risk-aware planning and scheduling for transportation and logistics operations; and research into human-computer collaborative decision making under uncertainty. He is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and is on the AIAA Intelligent Systems Committee. Dr. Kolitz has provided leadership in Draper’s collaboration with the academic world, supervising more than 25 graduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both master’s and Ph.D. candidates doing their thesis and dissertation research at Draper. He is a lecturer in extension at Harvard University and has been a lecturer at MIT. He has been an author on more than 55 papers during his time at Draper. He holds a Ph.D. in operations research from Northwestern University.
Steven Kornguth is the director of the Center for Strategic and Innovative Technologies at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as the director of biological and chemical defenses at the Institute for Advanced Technology for the identification of critical technologies, and a research professor of pharmacy. His current research efforts relate to sustaining the high-tempo operations performance of soldiers and developing technologies for defense against biological threats. Dr. Kornguth was previously a professor of neurology and biomolecular chemistry
at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is currently professor emeritus. He is editor of Neurocognitive and Physiological Factors During High-Tempo Operations, published in 2010 by Ashgate. Dr. Kornguth is a current member of the Army Science Board and a former member of the NRC Committee on Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications. He is also a member of the Biological Security Experts Group. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Frederick R. Lopez, BrigGen, USMCR (Ret.), is an independent consultant, having retired from the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve after 28 years and having served 3 years on active duty. He also had a 36-year career as an engineer with McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company and Raytheon Company. In his last position, he was the director of engineering for Raytheon Electronic Warfare Systems in Goleta, California. General Lopez was responsible for the management of all engineering personnel in support of operational and support programs in electronic warfare systems and for the implementation of engineering processes and process improvement activities within the engineering discipline. Highlights in General Lopez’s Marine Corps career include a tour of duty in Vietnam, service as an Infantry Officer with Master Parachutist Qualification, and a secondary Military Occupational Specialty of Forward Air Controller (FAC). He has held billets as company executive officer, company commander, battalion executive officer, battalion commander, FAC, naval gunfire team leader, brigade platoon leader, Air/ Naval Gunfire Liaison Company operations officer, regimental operations officer, assistant division commander and Commanding General of the 4th Marine Division, and Deputy Commanding General of the lst Marine Expeditionary Force. His medals and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal and Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V.” General Lopez was a member of the NRC Standing Committee for Technology Insight—Gauge, Evaluate, Review, and the NRC Committee on Avoiding Technology Surprise for Tomorrow’s Warfighter. He received a B.S. degree in mathematics from California State Polytechnic College and his M.S. in computer science from West Coast University.
Laura A. McNamara is a principal member of technical staff in the Exploratory Simulation Technologies Organization at the Sandia National Laboratories. Trained in cultural anthropology, Dr. McNamara conducts field studies in national security environments to assess barriers and opportunities for new technology development and adoption. She has worked with nuclear weapons experts, intelligence analysts, and cybersecurity experts, focusing on issues of expert knowledge elicitation and representation, verification and validation in computational social science, uncertainty quantification, user-centered design strategies, innovation adoption, and software evaluation. As the human factors team lead for Sandia’s Networks Grand Challenge, she is currently working on evaluation strategies to determine how novel information visualization techniques impact knowledge
production in intelligence organizations. Dr. McNamara is a fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology and was appointed to a second term on the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities. She received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of New Mexico.
Christopher Nemeth is a principal scientist at Applied Research Associates, Inc., Cognitive Solutions Division. He is group leader for Cognitive Systems Engineering and performs research to understand and support human cognitive performance in high-hazard work domains. Dr. Nemeth has served for more than 20 years as an adjunct member of the faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology. As principal of Nemeth Design/Human Factors, he has provided design and human factors consulting, writing on human performance and system design, and has provided expert witness services for litigation related to human performance. Dr. Nemeth served in the U.S. Navy and Naval Reserve and retired at the rank of captain after 30 years of service. In his last assignment, he served as the Public Affairs Officer for the Naval Surface Reserve Force, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. His personal decorations include the Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Navy Commendation Medal (second award), and Navy Achievement Medal (second award). He also earned qualifications as a Navy diver (scuba) and Navy/Marine Corps parachutist. Dr. Nemeth received his Ph.D. in human factors/ergonomics from the Union Institute and University.
Michael I. Posner is currently an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Oregon in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences. He is also an adjunct professor at the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Dr. Posner is an eminent researcher in the field of attention and has studied the role of attention in high-level human tasks such as visual search, reading, and number processing. More recently, he has investigated the development of attentional networks in infants and young children. Dr. Posner is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1981 and the Institute of Medicine in 1988. He is currently a member of the NRC’s Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences and was a member of the NRC Committee on Human Factors (currently known as the Committee on Human-Systems Integration). For his contributions to the field of cognitive neuroscience, Dr. Posner was awarded the 2008 National Medal of Science. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan.
Alan R. Washburn, distinguished professor emeritus of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School, has served as chair of the Operations Research Department. His work has spanned the fields of electrical engineering, physics, mathematics, and operations research. Dr. Washburn is the recipient of many awards including the 2005 Clayton J. Thomas Award from the Military Operations Research Society and the 2009 Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Medal awarded by the Secretary of the Navy. His research results in applied probability, search and detection, optimization, combat models, game theory, and undersea warfare have been applied by the military services. Dr. Washburn was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2009 for his analytical contributions to search theory and military operations research and their application to antisubmarine, mine, and information warfare. He earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Gerold Yonas joined the Mind Research Network in 2009 as the director of neurosystems engineering. In his current work, he is dedicated to creating the new field of neurosystems engineering that links the advances in neuroscience with systems engineering through interdisciplinary teams that focus on the development of solutions to complex system problems that involve behavior, cognition, and neurotechnology. Previously, Dr. Yonas worked at the Sandia National Laboratories, where he served as vice president of Systems, Science, and Technology and later became Sandia’s principal scientist and initiated Sandia’s Advanced Concepts Group. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has received several honors, including the U.S. Air Force Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Dr. Yonas participates in several defense boards and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico. He has published extensively in the fields of intense particle beams, inertial confinement fusion, strategic defense technologies, technology transfer, and “wicked engineering.” He received his Ph.D. in engineering science and physics at the California Institute of Technology.
Greg L. Zacharias is the president and senior principal scientist of Charles River Analytics, Inc. In this position, he provides strategic direction for the Government Services and Commercial Solutions Divisions, while contributing to efforts in cognitive systems engineering and advanced decision-support systems. Before co-founding Charles River Analytics, he was a senior scientist at BBN Technologies, a research engineer at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, and a U.S. Air Force attaché for the Space Shuttle program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Dr. Zacharias has been a member of the NRC’s Committee on Human Factors (currently the Committee on Human-Systems Integration), co-chaired the NRC
Committee on Organizational Modeling: From Individuals to Societies, and recently was a member of the NRC’s Committee for a Review of the En Route Air Traffic Control Complexity and Workload Model reviewing an En Route Air Traffic Control Workload Model for the Federal Aviation Administration. He has served on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board as an outside peer reviewer of the Air Force Research Laboratory and recently chaired a study in advanced command and control of remotely piloted aircraft for future operations. Dr. Zacharias is currently the founding chair of the Human Systems Division of the National Defense Industrial Association. He earned a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
