Ann Bernath is a software systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, currently developing ontologies and taxonomies to help JPL engineers and scientists discover relevant technical information and colleagues with similar interests and expertise.
Previously, Ann determined requirements for and tested several information applications. including the NASA Engineering Network, and led JPL's Electronic Library Service.
Ann has been employed at JPL since 1978, starting out as a secretary: first as a temp, then a contractor, then a full-time employee in 1980. She became proficient with the “new” Wang word processor and branched out to programming, databases, system modeling, and automated document generation using systems engineering tools. Ann worked on several projects and tasks at JPL before joining the Electronic Library Service, first as its systems engineer and then its engineering lead. These projects include the Planetary Data System, as user interface team lead, the Cassini Electronic Library, as innovator and team lead, and the JPL policies and procedures system (JPL Rules) as its systems engineer.
Ann’s “claims to fame” include being the first person at JPL to bring up a “Web site” and the first at JPL to convert a Word document to SGML – the “father” of XML – using SGML tools. She received a JPL NOVA award for innovating mechanisms using SGML to automate the generation and maintenance of requirements documents on the Cassini project
Ann has earned the ECM Practitioner title from the AIIM organization.
Specialties: Content management, document management, metadata, SGML, XML, systems engineering tools
New Specialties and Interests: Ontologies, taxonomies, semantic technologies
Software Systems Engineer - NASA Engineering Network (NEN) at Jet Propulsion Laboratory
