Jim Fernandez earned Bachelor of Science degrees from LSU in Quantitative Business Analysis in 1983 and Management in 1985 and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of South Dakota in 1988. At LSU, he was in ROTC and later served in the U.S. Air Force as missile combat crew commander at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., where he exercised direct command and control of approximately $75 million in equipment and weapons.

Jim became NCSRT Executive Director in 2003, left LSU in late 2006 for a little over a year and returned to his current position in early 2008. Jim started his career with LSU in 1991. In addition to his position with NCSRT, Jim served LSU as Business Manager in Physics and Astronomy, Chief Financial Officer and Administration Interim Assistant Director at CAMD, Assistant Graduate School Dean and Graduate Admissions Director, Director and Principal Investigator of Law Enforcement Online, Executive Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost and Vice Provost for Fiscal Affairs in the Office of Academic Affairs.

Jim has also held senior management positions at the University of Vermont, the State University of New York, Arizona State University, LSU Health Sciences Center and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Department.

In addition to his duties as Executive Director of NCSRT, Jim is also the Chairman of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC).

Robyn Hawkes earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from LSU and maintains her professional certification as an internal auditor, CIA. She has been employed with LSU since 1985 and joined the NCSRT staff in April 2003. Robyn began her work at LSU as an accountant before joining the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administrative Services as an internal auditor. After three years, she was promoted to Senior Internal Auditor. Robyn remained in Internal Audit until May 1999 when she was hired as Business Manager for the Division of Continuing Education and remained there until accepting the Assistant Executive Director position with NCSRT in 2003. She was promoted to Associate Executive Director in July 2007.

Robyn’s position creates a valuable resource in the existing programs, contacts, and relationships of LSU’s nationally recognized center, NCSRT. She is proud to be a part of the NCSRT, as it is a leader in providing training on antiterrorism and counterterrorism techniques and regularly supports state and federal law enforcement agencies’ projects.

Peter Chen earned his Bachelor of Science degree from National Taiwan University in Electrical Engineering in 1968. He earned a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science/Applied Mathematics from Harvard University in 1970 and 1973, respectively. At LSU, he has been the M. J. Foster Distinguished Chair Professor of Computer Science since 1983 and Director of the Homeland Security and Emergency Response Lab since 2003.

Peter became NCSRT Director of Special Projects in 2006. He is responsible for developing and managing new business opportunities and projects for NCSRT. He is also responsible for growing the research component of the NCSRT by teaming up with top researchers at LSU and other leading institutions. He is assisting Jim Fernandez, the NCSRT Executive Director, in formulating strategic directions/plans and building synergy between different functional units of NCSRT in order to reach the next level of excellence.

Peter is the PI and Co-PI of several large research projects on anti-terrorism and cyber security funded by NSF, DoD, AFOSR, BoR, and other agencies. He is the Executive Director of the U.S.-China Million Books Online project.

Peter is an internationally known scientist and has held regular and visiting professorship positions at MIT, Harvard, and UCLA. He is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, and AAAS. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences. He is well known for his development of the Entity-Relationship (ER) model, which is being used by hundreds of thousands of systems analysts and developers around the world in daily design and development of information systems. Peter was a member of the Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation CISE Directorate and has been a member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board member since 2005. He has received many prestigious awards including ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award, IEEE Harry Goode Award, and Pan Wen-Yuen Research Excellence Award (Taiwan’s highest high-tech award). He is honored as one of the 16 software pioneers. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. More information about him can be found in his LSU home page: www.csc.lsu.edu/~chen.