[SCS] The Society for Modeling & Simulation International Named 2015 SCS Award Winners

VISTA, Calif. - Feb. 17, 2016 - PRLog -- Gabriel Wainer-Distinguished Service Award
This award recognizes notable service to the Society by a member at a level of dedication and achievement that is rarely seen. He has been the Vice President for conferences in the recent years and has provided outstanding leadership to all general chairs and their committees and was pivotal in establishing a process to improve the conference organization by establishing a leadership development process that ensures that general chairs have experience in other committee roles. It has allowed that leadership roles for SCS conferences are now set two years in advance, and each leader can learn on the job before he/she takes over the ultimate responsibility. He has also been symposium chair and a committee member and has helped start a new conference: SIMAud, and reorganized both the Symposium on Theory of Modeling and Simulation (TMS), and the Discrete Event Simulation (DEVS). As the former VP of Publications, he initialized Special Issues for the conference to increase the value for SCS members and has guided editors of over 20 issues which are now applicable for SIMULATION as well as for Journal for Defense Modeling and Simulation (JDMS). He has insured the highest quality of the articles accepted and published by clear guidelines for special issue editors and reviewers. He has helped increase submissions and attendees since 2012 to where published papers have gone up 10-20% every year. Creating a model of conference attendance based on submissions can be used to estimate conference attendees and even budget food expenditures and rooms needed. Lastly, he has been responsible for bringing in new leadership by bringing in new tracks for new research topics.

Gregory Zacharewicz-Outstanding Service Award
The Outstand Service Award recognizes outstanding service to the Society by a member. He has been Program Chair for TMS/DEVS for the years of 2012 and 2013. He has also been the General Chair for the TMS/DEVS in 2014. He was Tutorial Chair of the 2014 Spring Simulation Multi-Conference. He has also held the chairs of Publicity for the 2015 Spring Simulation Multi-Conference. He will hold the Program Chair in the 2016 Spring Simulation Multi-Conference and the Reviewer for Simulation.

Agostino Bruzzone-SCS Modeling & Simulation Hall of Fame
The Modeling and Simulation Hall of Fame recognizes the outstanding visionary leadership and dedication to “increasing the effectiveness and broadening the application of simulation.” He has contributed to the introduction of distributed simulation (by using the standard for distributed simulation IEEE 1516 HLA) in the civil sector, such as industry and logistics, especially when HLA was used for military applications only. He and Riga Technical University, led two teams of researchers on the first HLA integration test, which were carried out at European level at the early beginning of the new millennium. He is a reference point at Italian, European, and international levels. Many of his PhD. Students and researchers have become “simulationists” under his guidance and support. Today, he is leading the new Modeling & Simulation sector at NATO STO CMRE (Center for Maritime Research & Experimentations) while still maintaining his full professor position at University of Genoa, Italy.

Ralph Huntsinger-SCS Modeling & Simulation Hall of Fame
He has earned his PhD. in Chemical Engineering at Montana State University. He is a fellow of SCS and the current historian for the Society and has held the position, Associate Editor for the Journal for Defense Modeling and Simulation (JDMS). His past positions include being the past President at CSU, Chico Chapter of the Society of the Sigma Xi and past adjunct full professor in the Computer Science Degree Department at Humboldt State University. He was also a Guest Full Professor at the Beijing Information Science and Technology University (BISTU) and School of Automation Science and School of Information Engineering, and also Full Professor at Beihuang University until the year 2018 in the College of Automation Science and Engineering Simulation Center, both in Beijing, China. For this he was appointed as a Special Advisor of the Chinese Association for System Simulation (CASS) by the CASS Executive Board. His other work abroad is as an Official Ambassador for International Affairs to represent the Polish Society for Computer Simulation outside of Poland appointed by the President of PTSK, Warsaw, Poland. He is a professor Emeritus at Bialystok Technical University in Poland. Also, he was a Professor in France at the Laboratoire Percepttion, Systemes, Information in Rouen, Haute Normandie and at the Institut National des Sciences Appliques de Rouen in France. He is currently the Editorial Advisor for Simulation Transaction Journal, which is just one of the things he does today. He is an Emeritus Professor of mechanical Engineering and of Computer Science in the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Construction Management at California State University, Chico. He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Modeling, Simulation, and Scientific Computing as well as Co-Editor-in-Chief for Applications for the Journal of Modeling and Simulation Research and Development, and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Computer Science & Systems Biology and the past President of the International Center for Innovation and Industrial Logistics (ICIIL). Other organizations he is a part of are the Web med Central Lead faculty in Biomedical Engineering, Editorial Board Member of the Journal, “Computer Engineering & Information Technology.” He is the founder and International Director/Coordinator Emeritus at the McLeod Institute of Simulation Sciences (MISS) for which he is an International Ambassador. He is part of Huntsinger and Associates, Consultants, in California and Montana, USA, a registered Chemical Professional Engineer, part of the State Delegate (voting) to the California Council of the Emeritus and Retired Professor Association (ERFA), a member of the Cal-ERFA Pre/Post Retirement Concerns Committee, and serving the USA-DOD (Department of Defense) and NATO.