Dr. Mark Williamson, Director General of the Center for Security Science, DRDC, Canada
Mark A. Williamson is Director General of Defence Research and Development Canada’s Centre for Security Science, which operates in partnership with Public Safety Canada. DRDC CSS is responsible for leading the Canadian Safety and Security Program on behalf of the Government of Canada, a program whose mission is to strengthen Canada’s ability to anticipate,prevent/mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters, serious accidents,crime and terrorism through the convergence of science and technology (S&T) with policy,operations and intelligence.
Mark has performed and managed S&T activities across the academic, industry and government sectors for over 20 years. He began his government career as a petroleum geoscience research scientist with Natural Resources Canada. Throughout the 90’s he coordinated and led several multidisciplinary academic, industry and government initiatives that evaluated and assessed petroleum potential in Canada’s frontier basins. Subsequently, as Program Manager for the Earth Science Sector (ESS), he managed a large effort to consolidate and make available Canada’s geoscience knowledge base.
In 2006, Mark was appointed Director of Chemical, Biological, Radiological-Nuclear and Explosives Research and Technology Initiative where he was responsible for making strategic investments in CBRNE related S&T. This involved efforts to harness existing intellectual capacity across Canada’s federal science based departments and in creating linkages with industry and academia. Subsequently he assumed the role of DDG for DRDC CSS with responsibility to develop a strategic framework within which to identify safety and security policy and operational priorities requiring S&T investments.
Maria Rey, S&T C4ISR , Canada.
Ms. Maria Rey is the former Director General, Science and Technology (S&T) for Joint Force Development within the Department of National Defence S&T branch, Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC). In this capacity she oversaw that formulation and delivery of the S&T program in Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR). Reporting to the Assistant Deputy Minister for Science and Technology, Ms. Rey was the senior Scientific Advisor to the Department in Joint Force Development and managed the S&T program for the departmental C4ISR investment.
Ms. Rey first joined Defence Research Establishment Ottawa (DREO) in 1984, where she worked in the area of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) signal and image processing with an emphasis on RADARSAT 1 and other space-based and airborne imaging radars. In 1995, she founded the Radar Data Exploitation (RDE) group at DREO and led the development of a series of SAR imagery analysis toolkits including the Ocean Monitoring Workstation for automatic ship and wake detection off Canada’s coasts. Ms. Rey was also a key participant in the National Defence Joint Surveillance Architecture Study and the DND Surveillance from Space Study, two initiatives which paved the way for a Canadian Defence strategy on the development and use of space-based sensors for wide-area surveillance.
Ms. Rey became the Section Head for the Surface Radar Section in 2000. She led her team in the successful completion of evaluations of High Frequency Surface Wave Radar (HFSWR) and MUSIC, a larger-scale information fusion technology blending HFSWR information with that of other wide-area surveillance sources under the U.S. Navy Common Operating Environment.
As the Director Science and Technology Maritime (DSTM) in 2003 she played a key role in developing bilateral agreements between the U.S. and Canada on the use of S&T for anti-terrorism and public security.
In 2005, Ms. Rey assumed the role of Scientific Advisor, Integrated Capabilities and was appointed Director General of the Centre for Operational Research and Analysis (CORA).
In 2009, she went on to take the role of Director General DRDC Ottawa, with responsibility for the oversight of the Ottawa laboratory and its radar, electronic warfare, radiological and nuclear capabilities.
Ms. Rey received her Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics from Dalhousie University in 1982 and her Masters of Applied Science Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Nova Scotia in 1986. She is a graduate of the Canadian Forces College National Strategic Studies Program.