App Developers and Physicist Nab Prestigious SAMMY Awards

The Partnership for Public Service will award its prestigious Service to America Medals to nine outstanding federal employees this evening, and two of those winners work in federal IT.

Nael Samha, program manager of the Office of Technology, and Thomas Roland, Jr.,  program manager of the Office of Field Operations at the Homeland Security Department, won theHomeland Security Medal for their work in creating a smartphone application that allows Customs and Border Protection agents in the field to access law enforcement databases in real time. The application has led to enforcement actions against more than 450 drug traffickers, weapons smugglers, illegal aliens and potential terror suspects since March 2010.

Jacob Taylor, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, won the Call to Service Medal for his work in creating a scientific theory that could lead to medical imaging in microscopic detail for better health care. He also developed innovative technology to allow greater quantities of data to speed across the Internet with less energy and at lower cost.

To learn more about this year’s winners, click here.