PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release Date: January 25, 2005

For More Information:  Barbara Belmont 626 791-7689

The National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals (NOGLSTP) is pleased to announce this year's recipients of its GLBT Scientist and Engineer of the Year Awards and its National Corporate Award:  Sim Aberson, Lynn Conway, and Raytheon Company, respectively.  These awards will be presented at a ceremony during the NOGLSTP Reception at the upcoming 2005 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington DC on February 19, 4-6 pm, in the Embassy Room at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel. All interested people are welcome to attend this reception and awards ceremony; registration for the AAAS Annual Meeting is not required.

Dr. Sim Aberson is the recipient of the 2005 NOGLSTP GLBT Scientist of the Year Award, which honors a lesbigaytrans scientist or educator who has made outstanding contributions in their field, and recognizes sustained contributions in design, production, management, education, or research. Dr. Aberson, a research meteorologist at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), performs hurricane research which has led to significant improvements in hurricane track forecasts.  He flies into and above hurricanes aboard NOAA’s research aircraft to collect data for not only research but for use by the National Hurricane Center. His research group received the US Dept of Commerce Gold Medal for their performance during Hurricane Andrew; he was a NOAA Research Employee of the Year, and wrote the award-winning scientific article, “The Impact of Omega Dropwindsondes on Operation Hurricane Track Forecast Models” for the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. See http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Aberson/ for further details about Dr. Aberson.

Dr. Lynn Conway has been selected to receive the 2005 NOGLSTP GLBT Engineer of the Year Award, which honors a lesbigaytrans engineer who has made outstanding contributions in their field, and recognizes sustained contributions in design, production, management, or research. Dr. Conway, Professor Emerita of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,  is internationally recognized for her innovations in VLSI chip design methods, and is co-author of the book Introduction to VLSI Methods. Her major contribution to supercomputer system architecture is the invention of “dynamic instruction scheduling”, which has become a classic hardware method for enhancing the performance of VLSI superscalar processors. More recent research has focused on visual communications and control, probing for basic system and user interface concepts as applicable to hybridized internet/broadband-cable communications. She received five U.S. Patents for her inventions from this research. See http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/BioSketch.html for further details about Dr. Conway.

The Raytheon Company is the 2005 recipient of our National Corporate Award. These awards are given to the corporation or company which has demonstrated outstanding support for NOGLSTP, its programs and objectives.  In addition to having a commitment to building a diversity-inclusive corporate culture, Raytheon has an active community outreach program in the way of grants and volunteerism. Through its community grants program, Raytheon has provided financial support to help NOGLSTP grow and become a stronger advocate for GLBT engineers and scientists. Raytheon is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business aviation and special mission aircraft.  Follow this link to learn more about Raytheon Company.