IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2022 - 38

Chiefs provided funding for models of
war that included chaotic behavior.
" When I started the math program,
I always received the question of what
was math good for? Why are you starting
a program in that area? " Wisniewski
recalls. " I was able to prove why math
was important. "
Learning the Business
After years at DARPA, Wisniewski was
eager to try industry. The Lockheed Corporation
recruited her to their corporate
offices across the country in California.
This was a groundbreaking role: as director
of Advanced Computer and Software
Applications, Wisniewski was among the
first females to hold such an executive-level
position at Lockheed. The fact that she
was a mathematician at an executive level
also " piqued the interest of many employees. "
At corporate headquarters, she
had the ability to work across the entire
organization, access that gave her great
insights into the running of the corporation,
and she led the development of new
interdisciplinary technology thrusts across
operating companies. While at Lockheed
she was able to develop the business acumen
that would soon contribute to making
her a successful entrepreneur.
She moved back to the east coast
to become a vice president of the Titan
Corporation, where she " created new
business initiatives and developed corporatewide
strategic plans for technology
development. " She reported to cofounder
Albert E. Knauf, who had started
Titan in his house before growing it into
a billion dollar corporation. He would go
on to play an important role in mentoring
her throughout her career.
After Titan, she moved to Analytic Services,
Inc. (ANSER), where she was vice
president of IT. ANSER was a nonprofit federally
funded R&D center and Wisniewski
oversaw business operations and government
contracts; was responsible for business
growth, profit, and loss; developed
and implemented strategic planning;
and managed a complex organization in
diverse technological areas. It was while
she was at ANSER that she initiated and
directed the development of a system that
incorporated facial recognition, AI, and
an aging algorithm to find missing and
exploited children on the Internet and re -
unite them with their families. She secured
US$8 million in funding to support the
de velopment of this technology, and the
first implementation was used by the West
Virginia State Police, the U.S. Drug En -
forcement Administration, and U.S.
Customs and Border Protection.
When Senator John McCain invited
her to give testimony to the U.S. Senate
Committee on Commerce and Transportation
to discuss emerging technologies
in the millennium, she talked
about AI and facial recognition. When
she was asked why it was worthwhile
to fund pure research, this system is
the example she gave. While at DARPA,
Wisniewski directed development in the
field of CFD, a branch of fluid mechanics
that uses data structures and mathematical
modeling to study and simulate
fluid flows. However, this work in CFD
led to an unexpected technology: it led
to mathematicians funded by her program
developing the facial recognition
method that Wisniewski would later use
at ANSER to find missing children and
reunite them with their families.
Soon Wisniewski began to see the
need for mass market, turnkey biometric
systems and she decided to launch her
first start-up, Aurora Biometrics, a facial
recognition company that combined her
knowledge of AI and biometrics. " I founded
the company to provide complete turnkey
biometric systems that automatically
grant or deny access to facilities, networks,
and e-transactions, PCs without
PINs or passwords, to enhance security
and prevent unauthorized access, " she
says. Aurora's products were based on her
innovative mathematical methods.
Titan's Knauf played a significant
role in the company: he was her first
investor and served on the board. " When
I started Aurora, he was my mentor and
he taught me the aspects of starting a
company: from how do you value a startup,
how do you acquire funding, to constructing
a business plan so people care,
to creating a one pager for marketing;
all these aspects you need to be successful, "
Wisniewski says. And Aurora Biometrics
was very successful, selling to
businesses, government, and industry.
Wisniewski, with Dr. Paul Sandberg, president of the NAI (left), and Drew Hirshfeld,
former Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and
Acting Deputy Director the United States Patent and Trademark Office, at her
induction into the NAI.
38
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2022
A Heart for Education
Wisniewski knew her heart belonged in
education, though. She grew Aurora,
sold it, and then returned to her alma
mater, Stevens Institute of Technology,
as vice president for research and enterprise
development. There, she tripled
research revenues, launched nine startups,
and sold two. She championed the
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