Distinguished Technical Achievement Award Recipients
The Distinguished Technical Achievement Award is given to honor an outstanding technical contribution to oceanic engineering in either the fundamental or applied areas. The recipient need not be a member of the Oceanic Engineering Society or the IEEE. The award recognizes either a single major invention or scientific contribution or a distinguished series of contributions over a long period of time.
2019 Distinguished Technical Achievement Award
William (Bill) Kirkwood was presented the Distinguished Technical Achievement (DTA) award for excellence in research and development of underwater vehicles, and associated technologies.
Bill’s experience in the Oceanic Engineering Society started in the 1990’s as a member, then in 2003 he started the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles tutorial series and became an OES Administrative Board Member (ADCOM) in 2008 and became a Senior Member in 2010. Bill has served as Assistant to the Treasurer for 4 years and then as OES Treasurer for 4 years from 2013 to 2017. Bill also Co-Chaired OCEANS’16 Monterey, which brought the largest number of abstracts submissions to date and one the highest attendance records at an OCEANS conference. Bill served as Chair of the Unmanned Maritime Vehicles (UMV) and Submersibles Technical Committee and supported AUV Symposia from 2008 until 2018. Bill stepped down to the role of Co-Chair in 2018 moving Dr. Hanumat Singh into the leading role. He also Chaired the Technical Committee on Innovative Technology, a startup proposition for new growth. Bill moved the Innovative Technology committee into the UMV committee and reformed the committee to Autonomous Maritime Systems, bringing Aerial, Surface and Subsurface platforms as well as supporting equipment under one umbrella. Currently Bill is focusing on new initiatives, working with the Office of Naval Research and a number of institutions around the globe to bring more innovation to autonomous systems and comparative competitions around the globe through the creation of an advisory body.
Currently the Senior Research and Design Engineer for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), Bill has been focused on the applied research and development of next generation technologies for the advancement of ocean science. Creating technical solutions to ocean problems has been the core of his work for almost 35 years.
Bill’s primary expertise is in subsea robotic vehicles and instrumentation. As project manager and mechanical designer, Bill lead the development of the ROV Tiburon platform. Later, Bill was the MBARI project manager on the Dorado class AUV co-developed with Sea Grant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bluefin Robotics Inc., a small to medium sized underwater robotics company, spun out from this effort and commercialized the resulting vehicle system, which is now a division of General Dynamics Mission Systems. Bill patented and licensed the distinctive blue ringtail used on the Bluefin 21 AUV’s. Bill further developed AUVs as project manager and lead designer for MBARI’s mapping AUV, which operates 9 acoustic devices simultaneously and is still in high demand as one of the premier mapping systems for science in the world. Bill’s more recent work has centered on instrumentation for multidisciplinary biogeochemistry research. Bill’s efforts have created a plug and play 4000 meter rated laser Raman instrument and precision positioning systems for in situ optical spectroscopy. Bill was also Co-PI and project lead on the Free Ocean CO2 Enrichment (FOCE) experiments studying the impacts of ocean acidification (OA). The FOCE system is a combination robot and instrument performing in situ closed looped control of pH resulting from the anthropogenic release of CO2. The control loop is based on predictive models of atmospheric CO2 and allows scientists to “dial” in a future pH to observe the potential impacts of higher pH and the resulting lowering of oxygen. Several FOCE systems have been built and deployed around the globe, including the Mediterranean, The Great Barrier Reef, Casey Station Antarctica, Frame Straight and of course Monterey Bay. One FOCE system performed regular operations at 900 meters in Monterey Bay for 17 months and year long coral studies on the Great Barrier Reef. Future deployments are in process for Stoneybrook University’s inland water way and in the coral reefs of Panama at Bocas Del Toro.
As part IEEE-OES, Bill has published extensively with OES as well as other peer reviewed journals and magazines. Bill provided content and served as a technical and editorial reviewer for the MATE textbook “Underwater Robotics: Science, Design & Fabrication” published in 2010. Bill has several other book chapters on development of deep-sea sensors and optical instrumentation. As an adjunct professor at Santa Clara University, Bill teaches classes in ocean engineering as well as mentoring student projects in robotics and instrumentation and has served as an advisor to graduate students on marine related projects. Additionally, Bill continues consulting and provides design, manufacturing and management services for a number of aquaculture firms, universities and scientists with limited access to engineering. Bill was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2018 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Symposium.
Past Recipients of the Distinguished Technical Achievement Award
| 2018 | Martin Klein |
| 2017 | Peter N. Mikhalevsky |
| 2016 | John E. Ehrenberg |
| 2015 | Milica Stojanovic |
| 2014 | Christian de Moustier |
| 2013 | Gwyn Griffiths |
| 2012 | Joseph Vadus |
| 2011 | Christopher von Alt |
| 2010 | Tamaki Ura |
| 2009 | Robert T. Bannon |
| 2008 | Thomas B. Sanford |
| 2007 | Donald E. Barrick |
| 2006 | Fred Noel Spiess |
| 2005 | Douglas C. Webb |
| 2004 | John P. Craven |
| 2003 | Georges Bienvenu |
| 2002 | James Candy |
| 2001 | Werner R. Alpers |
| 2000 | Albert J. Williams 3rd |
| 1999 | William M. Carey |
| 1998 | Burton G. Hurdle |
| 1997 | Newell Booth |
| 1996 | Frederick H. Fisher |
| 1995 | Mack O’Brien |
| 1994 | Edmund J. Sullivan |
| 1993 | William J. Plant |
| 1992 | Arthur B. Baggeroer |
| 1991 | Henry Cox |
| 1990 | Robert C. Spindel |
| 1989 | Victor C. Anderson |
| 1988 | Chester M. McKinney |
| 1987 | James R. McFarlane |
| 1986 | Robert J. Urick |
| 1985 | William N. Nierenberg |
| 1984 | John B. Hersey |
| 1983 | Alan Berman |
| 1982 | Ira Dyer |
| 1981 | No Award |
| 1980 | Neil Brown |
| 1979 | David W. Hyde |
| 1978 | Richard K. Moore |
| 1977 | Howard A. Wilcox |
| 1976 | Werner Kroebel |
| 1975 | Robert A. Frosh |
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Dr. Marcia Isakson received a B.S. with a double major in engineering physics and mathematics from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1992. Upon graduation, she was awarded the Hertz Foundation Fellowship for the study of atomic and molecular physics. She earned her M.A. in atomic and molecular physics from The University of Texas at Austin in 1994. From 1994 to 1997, Isakson served as an officer in the United States Army at Fort Hood, Texas. In 1997, CPT Isakson was honorably discharged. In 2002, she earned a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin. In the summer of 2001, she began work on acoustics at Applied Research Laboratories at the University of Texas at Austin.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Albert J. Williams 3rd (Sandy) received his AB in Physics from Swarthmore College in 1962 and his Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1969. He spent his entire career at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, becoming Scientist Emeritus in 2002. A Fellow of IEEE, he received the Distinguished Technical Achievement Award of the IEEE/Oceanic Engineering Society in 2000 and is presently VP Technical Activities for OES. His research interests are microstructure and mixing, flow measurements, oceanographic instrumentation and measurements, sediment transport, and turbulent boundary layers. He designs and manufactures acoustic travel-time current meters for measurement of current, waves, and turbulence.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.