MSL Welcomes New Advisors
Three outstanding professionals recently joined MSL’s Advisory Board, expanding the scope and deepening the expertise within our network. Please join us in welcoming Scott Backhaus, Doug Orr, and Peter Ambs:
Scott Backhaus is currently the Coordinator for Electromagnetic Pulse and Geomagnetic Disturbance activities for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. He previously served in multiple roles in his 20-plus years at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), including Program Manager for the DOE Office of Electricity, Program Manager for DHS Critical Infrastructure, principal investigator for several LANL projects funded by the Office of Electricity, and team lead for LANL’s component of the DHS National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Group. He received his Ph.D. in Physics in 1997 from the University of California at Berkeley in the area of macroscopic quantum behavior.
Douglas Orr has served as Senior Director of Software Engineering at Google in the areas of Cloud, Google Apps, and Network Systems. He has extensive experience in developing software systems and computer security, and has also worked in the area of geospatial data analytics engineering with Descartes Labs, a Los Alamos National Laboratory spinout venture. He previously worked as Vice President Engineering for Arbor Networks in network security, and as Director of Engineering for Inktomi in application-level network management. He did his undergraduate and graduate work in Computer Science at the University of Michigan and the University of Utah.
Peter Ambs is currently IT Director for Presbyterian Healthcare. He was formerly Assistant Chief Information Officer for the City of Phoenix, AZ, where he was responsible for application delivery, utility technology, and data science solutions. As the former CIO for the City of Albuquerque, NM, he helped take the City to a #2 top Digital City for 2017 (as ranked by the Center for Digital Government). His interests include IoT, AI/ML, Blockchain, Big Data, DevOps, Cloud, and Cybersecurity, and the integration of energy and smart city systems. He serves on the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Tech Council, and on the New Mexico Information Technology Commission, and holds undergraduate and graduate degree in Information Technology from the College of Santa Fe.