Dr. Shashi Phoha

Dr. Phoha’s research interests are in computational sciences that enable dependable distributed automation using multiple interacting devices over ad hoc and long haul networks. She has held senior technical and management positions in academia, government, and industry. Since 2004, she has been the Director of a premiere national laboratory, the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) which has research Divisions in Computer Security, Software, Advanced Networking, Information Access, Mathematical and Computational Sciences, and Statistical Engineering. Since 1991, she has been a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and the Director of the Division of Information Sciences and Technology at its Applied Research Laboratory. Prior to that, she was the Director of Systems Analysis Division of the Computer Sciences Corporation where she led the development of the Global Transportation Network for DoD.  She worked in Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence Systems at ITT and at the MITRE Corporation.

She was awarded the 2004 Technical Achievement Award by the IEEE Computer Society. She has authored over 200 research papers, two books, and has three patents in her name. She has held leadership positions in many national and international organizations and delivered over two dozen invited keynote addresses at conferences and symposia.  She was Guest Editor of Special Issues of IEEE Transactions (TMC),  associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics for five years and is editor of the International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks. She received her M.S. in Operations Research from Cornell University (1973) and Ph.D. from Michigan State University (1976).