2009 Peer Awards
Awards Committee: Maura Tokay (Chair), Kevin Addison, Steve Graham, Megan Kispert, Guang-Dih Lei, Angie Martz, Harry Smith, Bill Teng, Cindy Trapp, Alex Young
Nomination Timeframe: 11 MAR 2009 through 13 APR 2009
Date of Ceremony: 07 JUN 2009
Place: SESDA II Picnic and Peer Awards Ceremony, Six Flags America, Largo, MD
Award Winners:
- Gretchen Cook-Anderson (Unsung Hero)
"Gretchen Cook-Anderson, a senior writer on the NASA Earth Science News Team, works long hours making sure tasks are done to a high standard. But is often behind the scenes, working out of her home office and not physically seen on a daily basis, but her contributions to the news team and NASA are exceedingly visible and valuable. Gretchen’s tireless work has lead to numerous media events over the years, such as press conferences and media teleconferences. For example, Gretchen's work leading up to the near-annual media events at the American Geophysical Union meeting every fall ensure that the events are well attended and reported on by media, and that the scientists are prepared and focused. Gretchen excels at rallying together people and products for a press event, which would not be as successful without her contribution."
- Mary Greene (Unsung Hero)
"Mary Greene is the single point of human contact for the user of GES DISC. She has consistently provided thorough, professional, and sustained customer support, no matter what the demands are from the user. This is exemplified by her handling of a recent special international request for TRMM data to be put on a user-supplied hard drive, captured by a very long email thread that spanned three entire months. User Services is the storefront of the GES DISC, and Ms Greene’s efforts are critical to maintaining its excellent customer support reputation. To this end, her recent and ongoing work in consulting with the GES DISC Operations group on applying Six Sigma to User Services is also highly contributory. Despite the GES DISC's large user base and the consequential large email traffic of user queries, the apparent footprint of User Services is small, attesting to both Ms. Greene's quiet but effective, behind-the-scene work."
- Keith Hughitt (Innovator)
"Keith is an outstanding member of a small team of people working on advanced browsing tools for solar data and metadata. In his short time at GSFC, he has designed and implemented the majority portion of a complex web application, creating a simple, intuitive but powerful tool to browse solar data. This is in all likelihood the most sophisticated web application in solar physics. He has done this largely by himself, and has met and exceeded all the development goals we set for him. He is a talented and creative programmer. Without him, the project would not nearly be as complete as it is and Keith is fundamental to its continuing success."
- Mark Malanoski (Innovator)
"Mark voluntarily filled a void when his team was temporarily without a warehouse manager. To help them through this time, Mark decided to update our neglected inventory list that itemizes all of our outreach materials and display hardware stored at the facility; a task that had been discussed in the past but never carried out. What Mark accomplished was far more comprehensive then his original goal. The new inventory documentation is a long overdue enhancement that has enabled the rest of our team to have an exact accounting of all publications, outreach materials and displays plus their location in the warehouse."
- Jonathan Morgan (Team Player)
"Since Jon started at ADNET, a little over a year ago, he has done everything that he can to share his knowledge with his coworkers, and to help others solve problems. He is a jack-of-all-trades and always seems to find a solution to any problem thrown his way. He has been able to find a solution for problems ranging from website access via a PDA to wire management for the racks in the server room to the best location to order a radiator for a particular car. Within the first month of his employment, he was already presenting ideas on how to re-wire our racks to make them easier to maintain and configure new systems."
- Marvin Noreiga (Wildcard)
"The Sample Analysis at Mars mass spectrometer had suffered several personnel setbacks including the loss of a skilled welder and precision assembly person. This was not a average welding position but one that required highly specialized skills and training. Marvin moved into the position with confidence, enthusiasm and resolve, demonstrating the skill to operate the special machine allowing the development program without delay. There are also several other segments of the instrument that Marvin had demonstrated remarkable adaptation. He has shown incredible skill and adaptiveness showing himself time and time again to be an invaluable asset to current and future projects in Code 699."
- Edgardo Ocampo (Unsung Hero)
"Of Ed’s many accomplishments a much under recognized aspect is his direct support to scientists. Ed is there to simply make sure that whatever is needed gets done. It is a simple statement that many of the public-face DISC activities that highlight the DISC's success would have been much harder to accomplish without Edee's behind-the-scenes efforts."
- Jianfu Pan (Leadership)
"When the previous Giovanni team lead left the project, many believed this would spell the end of Giovanni. Jianfu stepped in as the new Giovanni lead quickly learning the Giovanni architecture and software system. His dedication, politeness, and positive demeanor enabled the team to flourish and made the transition seem almost effortless. His initiative and leadership has allowed Giovanni to follow and smoother and cleaner promotion path to production."
- Edward Seiler (Team Player)
"Mr. Seiler is extraordinarily thorough in his work and shows considerable technical expertise in performing advanced assignments. He has led the implementation of the web services features in the Mirador web application and provided detailed documentation of this effort. He also constantly demands the Mirador team move to higher standards in coding, process, and documentation. Under his influence, inspiration and example Mirador is becoming a more solid application."
- Eduardo Takamura (Unsung Hero)
"Even though the size and make-up of the IT team at GCP has changed over the years; the quality of support has never been less than outstanding. This is largely due to Eduardo's efforts. Eduardo is a Jack-of-all-IT-trade, and he will tackle any task. Eduardo has always ready and willing to help filling a need where no would else has thought to do so. He does his best to solve my problems in a very timely manner even when he is busy. The last few issues I reported were fixed within an hour. He goes above and beyond to find a solution or somebody who can provide a solution to any problems presented."
- Dan Trang (Team Player)
"Dan is a hard working guy. He goes above and beyond his formal duties, often working during off hours and on the weekends. In spite of his language difficulties he manages to communicate clearly with his colleagues. He is a curator of Tads archive. This is one of the more complex archives we have. During this year's Contingency plan exercises, his system was the best prepared among 30 or so, and the exercise was a textbook success. This did not happen because he got lucky. This happened because he put in a mountain of work, understanding each detail and planning ahead for everything that might have gone wrong. I was stunned at the depth of his understanding and the quality of his work."
- Lalit Wanchoo (Unsung Hero)
"Lalit Wanchoo provides invaluable support to the ESDIS Science Processing Support Office (SPSO) task in two primary areas. Lalit is one of the longest serving SPSO staff. For the last 18 years he has been involved with every aspect of SPSO activities and is very knowledgeable about EOS products as well as various data systems. His knowledge and experience has proven invaluable in the design and development of a new ESDIS Metrics System (EMS) designed to collect ingest, archive, distribution and user metrics. Based on his knowledge about the file structures of the existing EDGRS, Lalit made significant contribution to the EMS development team by providing numerous, valuable technical suggestions to resolve various technical issues the system developers encountered."
