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Dr. Maria (Lolo) Penedo |
| GMS Technical Fellow Northrop Grumman |
Dr. Penedo has been a leader at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems for the past 20 years in the design, insertion, and use of software engineering and information technology, especially in the areas of process-based environments, architectures, collaboration, and agents. She has also been a recognized leader in the international software engineering research community, and a mainstay of leading professional societies in her field. Her broad experience and interests, her enthusiasm and passion for technology and technology-sharing, and her ability to work in both the research and project “worlds” have made her a valuable asset within the organization.
Dr. Penedo has led Northrop Grumman Mission Systems towards a “virtual enterprise” by identifying and developing technology in support of the paradigm of “distributed team collaboration from mobile desktops”. Her work in this area included the establishment of virtual conference centers in the intra and extranets, and virtual rooms that have been used by hundreds of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems personnel. This work has already saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in reduced travel costs, and in improvement of productivity of geographically-distributed teams. She not only assessed, developed and integrated technology but was instrumental in piloting and transferring it to corporate and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems IT organization. Her leadership in this area has been recognized with a 1998 Chairman’s Award for Innovation. Other Northrop Grumman Mission Systems honors include IR&D awards in 1986, 1987, 1998, 1999, and 2000.
At the same time, she has made major contributions to key TSD projects and targets; she is currently one of the TSD leaders in the development of concepts for the Army of the future, which include projects like Future Combat Systems (FCS), Army Knowledge Online, LogC2, and WIN-T. She was a key player in one of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems larger programs, Force XXI Battle Command Brigade-and-Below (FBCB2), where she led the FBCB2 design team that automated combat service support and logistics in the field Army. She was the Year-2000 focal point for FBCB2, which took the project without glitches to certification, served as advisor for the user interface, security and architectural aspects of the FBCB2 software, and led a study on the future of anticipatory logistics.
Lolo also plays an important role in technology transfer within the company. For example, Lolo and colleagues started the Tactical System Science Board and the Technology Network (TechnoNet), a mechanism that fosters technology transfer and helps Tactical Systems identify promising technologies which may be applied to our current and future business.
She currently teaches a Technical Trends class within the IIT/TSD Training organization, which is aimed at keeping Northrop Grumman Mission Systems personnel up to speed on the latest trends in technology applicable to system, software and information technology. She has revitalized the academic affiliation program within TSD and has been instrumental in the interaction between UCLA and TRW projects in the areas of wireless networks, sensor networks and simulation. She is also volunteering with Cal State Dominguez Hills University, in the faculty search committee, helping to strengthen our ties with our neighboring academic institution.
Dr. Penedo is currently on the editorial board of Wiley’s Software Process: Improvement and Practice Journal and she was an editor of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering for many years. She has been a member of Program Committees for major conferences in the software engineering area and she has been an invited speaker at major national and international conferences.
Penedo received her BS and MS in Mathematics in Brazil, and her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Los Angeles.