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 Anh N. Duong 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.
This page last updated 8/17/2006 jdb |
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