Dr. Martha Grabowski Named to National Academy of Engineering; Two McDevitt IS Students Among 12 Recipients of DHS Fellowships

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Martha Grabowski, McDevitt distinguished chair in information systems, information systems program director, and professor of information systems in the Madden College of Business and Economics, has been elected as a new member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for her work on engineering information systems that promote transportation safety and for national leadership in marine transportation policy.

According to the NAE, membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice or education… and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.” She will be formally inducted during the NAE’s annual meeting in September. Learn more here.

Two McDevitt Information Systems Research Fellows – Jimmy McGarvey ANL/IS ’24 MSIS ’25 and Irwing Vielma CSC ’24 MSIS ’25 – who have been working with Grabowski on Arctic search and rescue and oil spill modeling research, recently received masters and doctoral fellowships that included full graduate tuition, a stipend and DHS employment offers following graduation. The students will be working for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Seattle Wash. and in the Arctic boroughs and villages this summer. The fellowships are related to a 10-year, $46 million grant given by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish the Arctic Domain Awareness Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Only 12 awards were given nationally, with McGarvey and Vielma winning two of them. Gwen Morgan, MBA ’23, another McDevitt IS Research Fellow who is also part of Grabowski’s Arctic research team and now her doctoral student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, also received a DHS doctoral fellowship to continue her Arctic communications architecture research.

Grabowski has also been invited to join a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine study for Congress on the use of alcohol at sea, stemming from the rash of Coast Guard, Navy and Merchant Marine ship collisions and shipboard sexual assaults that have been linked to alcohol use. The two-year study is expected to begin in May 2024.