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Biographical Sketches of Speakers and Steering Committee
Keynote Speakers
Jason Tama, Director, Resilience and Response, National Security Council, The White House
Jason Tama is the deputy of the National Security Council’s (NSC) Resilience and Response Directorate. In this role, Tama oversees national policy in a number of areas, including domestic preparedness and incident response, hazard mitigation and recovery, and critical infrastructure security and resilience. He is detailed to the NSC from the U.S. Coast Guard and most recently served as the captain of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Tama holds a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the United States Coast Guard Academy, a master of engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master of business administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is an MIT Sloan Fellow, Brookings Institution Federal Executive Fellow, Marshall Memorial Fellow, and White House Fellows National Finalist. While at Brookings, Tama completed extensive research on emerging national security threats, and his work appeared in multiple publications.
Lt. General Thomas P. Bostick, Retired, U.S. Army and Bostick Global Strategies
Lt. Gen. Bostick currently serves as the chairman of Bostick Global Strategies. Bostick recently served as chief operating officer and president of Intrexon Bioengineering (NASDAQ: XON). He was the 53rd chief of engineers and commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bostick helped lead the nation’s response to Superstorm Sandy. He was the Army’s director of personnel; he deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom and later commanded the Gulf Region Division with responsibility for an $18 billion construction program. During 9/11, he was the senior watch officer in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center on the Joint Staff. He was an associate professor of mechanical engineering at West Point. As a White House Fellow, he was a special assistant to the secretary of veterans affairs. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Bostick is a licensed professional engineer and a Forbes Contributor. He is on the boards of CSX (NASDAQ: CSX), Perma‐Fix (NASDAQ: PESI), HireVue, American Corporate Partners (ACP), and Streamside Systems. Bostick is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, holds master of science degrees in civil and mechanical engineering from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in systems engineering from George Washington University.
Marcia McNutt, President, National Academy of Sciences
Dr. McNutt is a geophysicist and the 22nd president of the National Academy of Sciences. From 2013 to 2016, she was editor‐in‐chief of Science journals. She was director of the U.S. Geological Survey from 2009 to 2013, during which time USGS responded to a number of major
disasters, including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. For her work to help contain that spill, McNutt was awarded the U.S. Coast Guard’s Meritorious Service Medal. She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Geological Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Association of Geodesy. Her honors include membership in the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1998, McNutt was awarded the AGU’s Macelwane Medal for research accomplishments by a young scientist, and she received the Maurice Ewing Medal in 2007 for her contributions to deep‐sea exploration. She received a B.A. in physics from Colorado College and her Ph.D. in earth sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She holds honorary doctoral degrees from Colorado College, the University of Minnesota, Monmouth University, and the Colorado School of Mines.
Steering Committee Members
Dr. David Daniel, Chair, University of Texas at Dallas (Emeritus)
Dr. David Daniel is president emeritus of the University of Texas at Dallas. Previously, he was dean of engineering at the University of Illinois. Earlier, Daniel was L.B. Meaders Professor of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for 15 years. Daniel has conducted research in the area of geoenvironmental engineering, including research on drilling fluids, containment and management of those fluids, and fluid pressure control in the subsurface. Daniel served as chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ External Review Panel that evaluated the failure of the New Orleans levees caused by Hurricane Katrina. He also served as a member of the National Research Council’s Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, and the Geotechnical Board. Daniel received a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2000.
Prof. M. Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University
Granger Morgan is the Hamerschlag University Professor of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds appointments in three academic units: the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the H. John Heinz III College. His research addresses problems in science, technology, and public policy with a particular focus on energy, environmental systems, climate change, and risk analysis. Much of his work has involved the development and demonstration of methods to characterize and treat uncertainty in quantitative policy analysis. At Carnegie Mellon he is co‐director of the Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making and the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. He has served on a number of advisory committees related to energy issues in the United States and Europe. At the National Academies, he was the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) co‐chair of the Report Review Committee and has been involved in a variety of other NAS/National Research Council activities and studies. He is a member of the NAS, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society for Risk Analysis, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He holds a B.A. from Harvard College (1963) and a Ph.D. from the Department of Applied Physics and Information Sciences at the University of California, San Diego (1969).
Sara N. Ortwein, Exxon Mobile Corporation (Retired)
Sara Ortwein retired from ExxonMobil in March 2019. Prior to retiring, she was president of XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, from November 2016 through February 2019 and was responsible for ExxonMobil’s unconventional oil and gas business. Ortwein earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering at the University of Texas at Austin before joining Exxon Company, U.S.A., in 1980 as a drilling engineer. She held numerous technical and managerial assignments throughout her career. In 1997, she was named reservoir evaluation and planning manager for Exxon Ventures, CIS, focusing on new venture pursuit and capture in Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. In 2001, she became a corporate upstream advisor to senior management at ExxonMobil headquarters in Irving, Texas. Three years later, she was named production manager responsible for ExxonMobil-operated U.S. production operations. Ortwein was named vice president of engineering for ExxonMobil Development Company in 2006, where she was responsible for engineering design for major projects around the world. She served as president of ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company from September 2010 until November 2016, where she was responsible for research and technology development and application for ExxonMobil’s Upstream business. In 2020, Ortwein was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas. She is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. She is past chair of the University of Texas Engineering Advisory Board and currently serves on the Executive Committee. In late 2020, she joined the Board of Directors of Sanara Medtech.
Lt. General Thomas P. Bostick (Retired, U.S. Army) is also a steering committee member.
His biographical sketch is included above under Keynote Speakers.
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