Johns Hopkins APL-Backed Projects Secure NIH Brain Mapping Research Funding
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Johns Hopkins APL-Backed Projects Secure NIH Brain Mapping Research Funding

Two projects supported by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have secured funding from the National Institutes of Health to accelerate neuroscience research and inform new approaches to treating human brain disorders.

The funding was awarded through NIH’s BRAIN Initiative Connectivity Across Scales program to develop technologies designed to map brain circuits in detail to gain a better understanding of neural networks, Johns Hopkins APL said Tuesday.

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins APL brings expertise in cloud computing pipelines, systems engineering and machine learning to participate in the projects led by Harvard University professors Jeff Lichtman and Aravi Samuel.

Lichtman’s project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of generating a synapse-level brain map by creating a serial-section electron microscopy pipeline that could scale up to map an entire mouse brain.

Meanwhile, Samuel’s research is working to to speed up and optimize image generation to improve downstream steps.

POC - 2023 Healthcare Summit

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2023 Healthcare Summit on Dec. 6 to learn about emerging innovations and trends in the health care sector. Click here to register.

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CISA Strategy Conceived to Use AI to Boost Cybersecurity, Defend Critical Infrastructure
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CISA Strategy Conceived to Use AI to Boost Cybersecurity, Defend Critical Infrastructure

A new artificial intelligence roadmap from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will be implemented to leverage AI as a cyber defense tool as well as a resource to protect critical infrastructure.

CISA announced Tuesday that the first-ever whole-of-agency plan will also lay the foundation for interagency collaboration and communication to shape AI-based software policies.

Aside from collective regulation and cyber and critical infrastructure defense, the Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence lines of effort additionally includes pushing for secure-by-design principles and empowering and upskilling AI workforce.

Wash100 awardees Jen Easterly, director of CISA, and Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of DHS, elaborated on the significance of the AI roadmap.

Easterly said that the guidance “sets forth an agency-wide plan to promote the beneficial uses of AI to enhance cybersecurity capabilities; ensure AI systems are protected from cyber-based threats; and deter the malicious use of AI capabilities to threaten the critical infrastructure Americans rely on every day.”

Mayorkas explained that the roadmap was part of DHS’ “broad leadership role in advancing the responsible use of AI.” He referred to the Biden administration’s directive for DHS to promote safety standards for the responsible development of such technologies.

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America Makes & NCDMM Receive Ceiling Increases on Contracts With AFRL, Army
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America Makes & NCDMM Receive Ceiling Increases on Contracts With AFRL, Army

America Makes and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining have announced ceiling increases on their contract vehicles with the Department of Defense.

America Makes said Tuesday it saw its third cooperative agreement with the Air Force Research Laboratory rise by $256 million to $483 million, enabling it to support workforce development efforts and further drive the adoption of additive manufacturing, or AM, technology to improve U.S. security, resiliency and competitiveness.

CA3 is a seven-year contract awarded to America Makes in 2019.

Founded in 2012, America Makes is a public-private partnership that launched as DOD’s national manufacturing innovation institute for AM. The Youngstown, Ohio-based institute is composed of member organizations from the government, industry and academia focused on advancing AM tech adoption.

In September, NCDMM received a ceiling increase of approximately $176 million to its potential five-year, $69 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with the U.S. Army, bringing the total ceiling value to more than $246 million.

The IDIQ contract with the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center allows DOD and other agencies to use the services offered by NCDMM and its alliance network to support projects associated with manufacturing technology, process analysis, assessments, development and implementation of manufacturing platforms.

Established in 2003, NCDMM is based in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and helps the Army and other customers execute applied research and development projects to enhance defense weapons systems and related platforms.

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Christopher Lowman: Proactive Readiness Framework Needs Focus on Materiel, Operational Availability
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Christopher Lowman: Proactive Readiness Framework Needs Focus on Materiel, Operational Availability

Christopher Lowman, assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, suggested focusing on materiel availability and operational availability metrics to build a proactive approach to measuring military readiness and sustainment.

“My hypothesis is that an increased focus on materiel availability, operational availability and other sustainment health measures offers a proactive approach that integrates the expected engineered performance with the realities of the sustainment phase to better understand fleet performance over time,” Lowman wrote in an opinion article DefenseNews published Wednesday.

He noted that shifting toward a more data-centric, proactive framework requires metrics that enable the sustainment community to anticipate challenges rather than react to conditions.

This approach will allow sustainers to access “a rich data set” from which they can draw fleet-level conclusions, prioritize resources and streamline supply chain performance and maintenance schedules.

“By pivoting to these sustainment health measures, we can transition from a solely reactive readiness-based approach to one that emphasizes fleet health, supply chain performance, cost and return on investment in the form of availability,” Lowman said.

POC - Achieving Transformative Cooperation for National Defense Forum

Lowman will speak at the Potomac Officers Club’s Achieving Transformative Cooperation for National Defense Forum on March 14. Click here to register and join the discussion on the future of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control and its impact on international security.

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CDAO Accomplishes Key Deliverable of Responsible AI Strategy With Toolkit for RAI Ethics
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CDAO Accomplishes Key Deliverable of Responsible AI Strategy With Toolkit for RAI Ethics

The Department of Defense advanced its 2022 responsible artificial intelligence, or RAI, strategy with the release of an RAI toolkit to improve ethical compliance of its AI projects.

DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office formulated the toolkit, which is based on several standards including the Defense Innovation Unit’s RAI Guidelines and Worksheets, the agency announced Tuesday.

The online platform is a key deliverable of the 2022 DOD RAI Strategy and Implementation Pathway, which discusses 64 lines of effort to execute the agency’s AI ethical principles. It provides guidance for modular assessments as well as parameters for developing AI technologies moving forward.

CDAO’s RAI Division will oversee the continuous enhancement of the toolkit, with plans to conduct information sessions and external feedback through its website.

“Responsible AI is foundational for anything that the DoD builds and ships,” Chief Digital and AI Officer Craig Martell remarked. “We promised to establish processes to design and employ human fail-safes in AI development and deployment, and we’re excited to provide this applied Toolkit for our end users.” the Wash100 awardee added.

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Wendy Piazza Appointed Director of Contracts at Platform Aerospace
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Wendy Piazza Appointed Director of Contracts at Platform Aerospace

Wendy Piazza has been selected by Platform Aerospace as its new director of contracts.

She brings over two decades of contracting experience to Platform, the Hollywood, Maryland-based company shared with ExecutiveGov in an email on Monday.

Platform Aerospace President and CEO Kurt Parsons said the organization is “extremely excited” to welcome Piazza to its team.

He shared Piazza’s responsibilities in her new position, which include laying out the strategic vision for Platform’s contracts department and determining how the enterprise can add value for current and potential clients.

Piazza said she is “thrilled to be part of the Platform family” and looks forward to “providing innovative contracting solutions to Platform’s current and future customers.”

Before joining Platform, Piazza held numerous contract-related roles. She most recently served as senior director of contracts at Xator Corporation, which was acquired by Parsons Corporation in 2022. Earlier, she was director of contracts at TSM Corporation, now owned by Xator, and director of contracts and administration at Coalescent Technologies, where she worked for nearly 10 years.

Parsons said Piazza’s broad understanding of relevant business activities, including defense contracts, program management, mergers and acquisitions and more, will make a “valuable impact on our team.”

Her appointment follows Platform’s September appointment of Richard Clarke, a retired U.S. Army general, to its Board of Directors. As a board member, he is responsible for helping to improve the production of the company’s unmanned aerial vehicle for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

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DISA Deploys Classified Cloud Through DEOS Blanket Purchase Agreement; Carissa Landymore Quoted
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DISA Deploys Classified Cloud Through DEOS Blanket Purchase Agreement; Carissa Landymore Quoted

The Defense Information Systems Agency has collaborated with General Dynamics Information Technology and Microsoft to develop and launch a cloud software-as-a-service offering in a classified environment for the Department of Defense.

DISA said Tuesday it launched the DOD365-Sec classified cloud platform using the potential 10-year, $8 billion Defense Enterprise Office Solutions blanket purchase agreement.

In 2020, the General Services Administration and DOD re-awarded the DEOS BPA to GDIT as a result of a corrective action.

Dell Marketing and Minburn Technology Group serve as GDIT’s teaming partners for the DEOS program to support the implementation of Microsoft 365 email, storage, file sharing, spreadsheet, word processing, collaboration and other productivity tools across DOD.

DISA initiated the deployment phase for DOD365-Sec in late May and expects to migrate about 275,000 end users to the secret cloud environment by the end of 2023.

Carissa Landymore, director for the DEOS program at DISA, said one of the agency’s top priorities is delivering DOD365-Sec to warfighters to enable them to facilitate classified data sharing, collaboration and communication.

“By offering solutions for seamless and secure information-sharing across operational boundaries, we’re providing warfighters with modern tools that allow them to operate ahead of the adversary and meet their mission anytime, anywhere,” Landymore added.

DISA is using and testing third-party capabilities to achieve data protection and data separation in the classified cloud environment.

“We’re putting additional security…more fence, more guardrails…around this. We’re moving toward data segregation and zero trust as the long-term objective,” noted Landymore.

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HHS CIO Karl Mathias to Join NASA
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HHS CIO Karl Mathias to Join NASA

Karl Mathias, chief information officer at the Department of Health and Human Services and a 2023 Wash100 awardee, will step down as CIO on Dec. 1 to assume an engineering role at NASA, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

In an email to employees obtained by FNN, Mathias mentioned some of the accomplishments of the CIO office in the past 20 months under his leadership, such as advancing a strategic direction for the department’s cybersecurity posture, creating a strategy for data management and evaluating acquisition packages “to ensure proper use of information technology.”

Prior to joining HHS in March 2022, Mathias was CIO of the U.S. Marshals Service. He is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who served as deputy head of the electrical engineering department at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

Jennifer Wendel, deputy CIO at HHS and a 17-year FBI veteran, will take over as acting CIO until the department appoints a permanent replacement.

La Monte Yarborough, chief information security officer at HHS, will serve as the department’s deputy CIO on an interim basis, according to the report.

House Approves Bill to Keep Government Funded Past Saturday
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House Approves Bill to Keep Government Funded Past Saturday

The House of Representatives has passed a continuing resolution that aims to keep the U.S. government funded past 12:01 a.m. this coming Saturday through early 2024, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The CR features what has been described as “laddered” deadlines, providing funding for about 20 percent of the government — including military and veterans programs — through Jan. 19 and funding for the remaining 80 percent — including the Department of Defense — through Feb. 2.

The House approved the legislation under suspension of the rules to overcome opposition from some conservative Republican lawmakers who are calling for deep spending cuts.

Under the suspended rules, two-thirds of the House was required to pass the measure. The bill cleared the chamber via a 336-95 vote.

The CR will now be taken up by the Senate, with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., saying the upper chamber would act on the legislation “as soon as possible.”

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Denton Gibson Assumes New Role Within NASA Launch Services Program
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Denton Gibson Assumes New Role Within NASA Launch Services Program

NASA has appointed Denton Gibson as launch director of the Kennedy Space Center Launch Services Program, which he has been a part of since 2004.

Gibson, who previously served as senior mission manager within LSP, succeeds former senior Launch Director Omar Baez, who recently retired, NASA said Monday.

In his new role, Gibson will work with senior Launch Director Tim Dunn in overseeing launches, including those for the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud ocean Ecosystem; Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U; and Europa Clipper missions.

Gibson holds a master’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Miami and a doctorate degree in systems engineering from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Regarding Gibson’s appointment, Dunn said, “His ability to ensure the readiness of spacecraft and rockets, as well as handling unique mission challenges that pop up, make him ready to lead the team on launch day.”

Amanda Mitskevich, the program manager of the Launch Services Program, said Gibson will lead a team responsible for “launching some of NASA’s most important and valuable missions.”

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