ICAS Bulletin
Institute for Corean-American Studies, Inc.
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Anh N Duong
Science Advisor to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations
for Information, Plans and Strategy and
to the Director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service
The Pentagon
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Dear Friend:
We are pleased to share with you that Anh N Duong will keynote "ICAS
Summer Symposium 2006: The Korean Diaspora" which will be held on August 5, 2006
at Montgomery County Community College, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.
Anh and her family
came to the United States as refugees of war after the fall of South Viet Nam in
1975. While her parents struggled to start over, Anh entered 10th grade at Montgomery
Blair High School in Maryland with a determination to excel, despite her non-existent
English. She graduated within the top 3% of her high school class and went on to
graduate Cum Laude in Chemical Engineering and Computer Science from the University
of Maryland at College Park. Anh also graduated with a 4.0 GPA from American University
earning a M.S. in Public Administration.
Because of her background, Anh feels deeply
indebted to the warfighters for her freedom and second chance in America. She had
wanted, from the start, to work for U.S. Defense in order to serve the warfighters.
Anh has spent her entire career of 23 years to date working for the U.S. Navy. She
used to manage all Navy explosives research and development efforts. In the past
decade, Anh successfully led the transition of 10 explosives into 18 different Army,
Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps weapons. This accomplishment was cited for her
receipt of the Dr. Arthur Bisson Prize for Naval Technology Achievement by Admiral
J. Cohen, Chief of Naval Research, in 2000.
Anh is most well known for her role
in the development of thermobaric weapons. In only 67 days, her team of nearly one
hundred scientists, engineers and technicians successfully went from concept through
development, scale-up and production of the U.S. first thermobaric weapon, the BLU-118B
bomb, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. This has earned Indian Head a Meritorious
Unit Commendation by the Secretary of the Navy and her team the Roger Smith Team
Award, while Anh was given the Civilian Meritorious Medal. Anh then led her team
through a follow-on effort to develop the payload for the new BLU-121B bomb, under
the Thermobaric Weapon Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD), and recently
won the ACTD-of–The-Year Award by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Before
her arrival to the Pentagon, Anh served as Director of Science and Technology at
the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division, and as Deputy Director of
the Naval Energetics Enterprise. She currently is Science Advisor to the Deputy
Chief of Naval Operations for Information, Plans and Strategy and to the Director
of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Her current focus is on Anti-Terrorism
and Force Protection.
Anh's leadership and passion for her work in serving the
warfighters are well known. She has been featured in newspapers and magazines (Washington
Post, Baltimore Sun, Asian Week, Viet Home…) and gave numerous interviews on national
and international television and radio networks (SBTN Cable TV, Asia Entertainment,
VNRA of Australia…). She has been guest speaker on topics such as Leading Change
and Cultural Competence at national conferences. Anh is one of the few non anti-war
voices in the documentary film "Why We Fight" which won the Grand Jury Prize at
the Sundance Film Festival. She is also featured in the new book Changing Our World:
True Stories of Women Engineers by the American Society of Civil Engineers, and
the Discovery Channel's "Future Weapons" series aired in May 2006.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sang Joo Kim / signed
Sr. Fellow & Executive Vice President
ICAS
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