Every year, the Partnership for Public Service presents the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, also known as the Sammies, to honor the devotion and valuable impact of our nation’s dedicated civil servants. Among this year’s award finalists are three NASA employees.
Hanwant Singh, a senior scientist at Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; Mark Skoog, an autonomous systems principal investigator at Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.; and Lisa Mazzuca, a search and rescue manager at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Named for the Partnership for Public Service’s late founder, American businessman and philanthropist Samuel J. Heyman, the award recognizes federal employees who “break down barriers, overcoming huge challenges and getting results.”
“We are very proud of Hanwant Singh, Lisa Mazzuca and Mark Skoog for their contributions and innovation,” said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot. “Their work is impactful and improves the lives of Americans every day. They most certainly deserve recognition with the Sammie award.”
Career achievement award
Singh is a finalist for the Career Achievement Award and was selected for his significant contributions to the field of science, as well as his proven leadership. Singh is an acknowledged leader in the area of atmospheric composition and chemistry. He contributed major theoretical and experimental ideas to understanding the natural atmosphere and the global change resulting from the impact of human activities. He has published more than 220 scientific papers, and was the first to demonstrate several scientific theories regarding global atmosphere.
He has led the advocacy, science definition and implementation of important NASA field campaigns using aircraft and satellites where he performed leadership roles of mission scientist and principal scientist.
Singh has received numerous awards and honors for his scientific work and service to the scientific community including: elected fellow of the World Innovative Foundation in 2005; elected an American Geophysical Union fellow in 2001, an honor accorded to only 0.1 percent of its members; elected an Ames associate fellow in 1991, which is Ames’ highest annual award.
National Security and International Affairs Award
Skoog earned a place as a finalist for the National Security and International Affairs Award for his work on the life-saving collision avoidance system, now on all U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets and soon to be deployed on other military aircraft. Skoog has collaborated for decades on this technology with the Air Force Research Laboratory and Lockheed Martin.
“This may be the most valuable thing that’s ever been done in terms of saving pilots and aircraft,” said Sue Payton, former assistant secretary of the Air Force.
The system is designed to prevent ground collisions when pilots become disoriented, or distracted, or lose consciousness due to the force of gravity. This kind of accident, called controlled flight into terrain, is the number one cause of death in military flying. Tests show that the technology could prevent 95 percent of those mishaps. Currently, Skoog and team are working to improve the technology to prevent air-to-air collisions and to make it available to other aircraft, including commercial airliners – and beyond.
Promising Innovations Award
Mazzuca is a finalist for the Promising Innovations Award, a new category this year. She is being recognized for her efforts in improving the nation’s search and rescue services to our citizens by overcoming challenges with current aircraft distress beacons. These commercially available emergency locator beacons (ELTs) are installed on countless commercial and general aviation aircraft and are designed to activate during a crash. ELTs have saved an estimated 40,000 lives, including nearly 300 American lives annually, but Mazzuca knew that number could improve dramatically. She led NASA’s design of a second-generation beacon; with a more robust signal that is less prone to interference, this new beacon reduces the time to detect and locate a distress signal. Victims can be found quickly to an increased accuracy of 328 feet (100 meters), a vast improvement over the current system’s 3,280 feet (one-kilometer) accuracy.
In addition to her NASA role designing innovative solutions, she is protecting citizens through her search and rescue (SAR) role as an auxiliary police flight officer and hoist operator on helicopters in Baltimore, Md. Mazzuca serves as a first mate in their marine police unit. She is SAR-certified, and a long-time advocate for boating and flight safety.
Known as the “Oscars of public service,” the Sammies have been presented since 2002. Individuals are chosen from submitted nominations, with finalists announced in mid-spring of each year.