Facial recognition keeps advancing

Nick Megna serves as the Unit Chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Biometric Center of Excellence (BCOE) where he is responsible for advancing the adoption of biometric and identity management solutions within the FBI and its user community. Mr. Megna manages the FBI’s biometric standards, specification, and technology pilot developments. These efforts have included the Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification, NGI Iris
Pilot, and the Universal Face and Latent Workstation software packages.

Prior to this assignment, Mr. Megna worked as a manager within the FBI’s multi-million dollar NGI project. He helped to manage the NGI Advanced Fingerprint Identification Technology implementation and worked on an array of NGI trade studies and prototypes. Mr. Megna served as a functional expert during the operational testing and deployment of the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) in the late 1990s, and has worked closely with federal, state, and local criminal justice agencies to establish interfaces to the Criminal Justice Information Services Division’s systems to include the IAFIS and National Crime Information Center.

Mr. Megna holds a Bachelor of Science from Fairmont State University and is an active member the Biometrics Institute and International Association for Identification.

Patrick Grother is a scientist at the National Institute of Standards in Technology responsible for biometric algorithm evaluation and biometric performance testing standardization. He leads the Face Recognition Vendor Tests, the Face-In-Video Evaluation and the Iris Exchange projects. These give quantitative support to developers, end-users and policy makers faced with algorithm selection, performance adequacy assessment, procurement specification. His current research interests relate to biometric failure analysis: image quality, demographic effects, and scalability. He co-chairs NIST’s biannual International Biometrics Performance Conference (IBPC) on measurement, metrics and standardization. He serves also as chairman of the ISO/IEC/JTC 1 Subcommittee 37 on Biometrics, and is editor of six standards there. He received the IEC 1906 Award, in 2009, and the ANSI Lohse IT Medal in 2013. He was awarded U.S. Department of Commerce Medals in 2003, 2007 and 2010.

Matthew Pruitt is the Chief Solutions Architect for Federal solutions at NEC Corporation of America. He also serves as chair for the Advances in Biometric Technology (AiBT) working group as part of the International Biometrics and Identity Association (IBIA). He has extensive expertise in biometrics and holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Notre Dame where his research focused on the performance of facial recognition algorithms with identical twins. He also worked to identify pre-stroke conditions using facial detection techniques for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder through a fellowship with the Mayo Clinic and Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. After his graduate work, Matthew went on to collaborate with various government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Currently, Matthew uses his experience in biometrics to help develop standards for seamless and frictionless travel experiences while enhancing security and privacy.

Tom Temin has been the host of the Federal Drive since 2006. Tom has been reporting on and providing insight to technology markets for more than 30 years. Prior to joining Federal News Radio, Tom was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines. Tom also contributes a regular column on government information technology.