FLC Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Regions Set to Honor the Best of Federal Laboratory Innovation

Released: October 5, 2021

(WASHINGTON, DC – October 5, 2021) The Federal Laboratory Consortium’s (FLC) Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions will honor outstanding federal innovation at their annual award ceremony on October 7th at 11:25 a.m. EDT. FLC awards showcase the partnerships that are the core element of successful technology transfer—the process of moving federal innovation out of the lab and into the marketplace.

The Mid-Atlantic region’s seven awards are distributed among five categories. Team awards in this region represent technological advances in vaccine and drug development, chemical threat detection, and airport screening advances. The Mid-Atlantic also issued individual awards to three outstanding professionals including Dr. Suna Gulay from the National Cancer Institute, Eric McGill for his work with NASA, and Dennis Andrucyk, laboratory director of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Northeast region selected two different teams from the same lab – M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory – as winners of Excellence in Technology Transfer awards for advances in video surveillance and cloud server security.

These regional labs are part of a nationwide network of 300+ federal labs, agencies and research centers engaging in this collaborative technology transfer process, which benefits society and national security. The FLC Awards recognize laboratories and their employees who have excelled. “Federal technology transfer is vital for our regions as they contribute to new businesses and jobs. Partnerships are the core element of successful technology transfer and these awards highlight these outstanding developments and professionals,” said Paul Zielinski, Executive Director of the FLC.

Mid-Atlantic Award winners:

Excellence in Technology Transfer

• USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Plum Island Animal Disease Center for commercializing an ARS-developed vaccine in Vietnam to help control African swine fever pandemic.
• National Cancer Institute, for a partnership resulting in a key FDA Orphan Drug Designation for a rare respiratory disease therapy.
• U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Chemical Biological Center for collaborating with Pendar to take handheld chemical threat detection technology to the next level.

Interagency Partnership Award

• Department of Homeland Security, Science & Technology Directorate and Transportation Security Administration; Department of Energy, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, and NASA for using collaboration and crowdsourcing to propel a new airport screening technology to commercialization.

Rookie of the Year Award

• Dr. Suna Gulay French, National Cancer Institute

Outstanding Technology Transfer Professional of the Year Award

• Eric McGill, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Laboratory Director of the Year Award

• Dennis Andrucyk, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Northeast Award winners:

Excellence in Technology Transfer

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT-LL) for an industry partnership that expands applications for MIT-LL’s video surveillance analytics technology (FOVEA).
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory for an open-source cloud server security technology (Keylime) that recently earned an endorsement from tech giant IBM.

For more information on the award winners and their technologies, visit the 2021 Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Awards Program. Attendance for the Awards Ceremony is free, but registration for the meeting is required. To register, click here.

About the FLC: The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is a formally chartered, nationwide network of more than 300 federal laboratories, agencies, and research centers that foster commercialization best practice strategies and opportunities for accelerating federal technologies from out of the labs and into the marketplace.

To learn more, visit www.federallabs.org.

Media contact: Carolina Olivieri, Marketing Director, [email protected] Tel. 202-960-1781