The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), coordinator of the U.S. voluntary standardization system, and its Committee on Education (CoE) are pleased to announce that Chris Golden of New York's Columbia University is the first-place winner of the second-annual ANSI student paper competition. Second place has been awarded to Heather R. Schimmelpfennig of Alabama's Columbia Southern University. The contest is part of an ANSI-led effort to raise awareness about the strategic importance of standards and conformance among U.S. undergraduate and graduate students. Entrants in this year's competition were asked to submit papers examining the role standards play in disaster recovery and business continuity, and to discuss how standards can be effectively used to prepare for or respond to an emergency situation. The contest was open to students of any discipline currently enrolled in an associate, undergraduate, or graduate level program in a U.S. academic institute of higher learning.
Mr. Golden's paper, titled "The Role of Standards in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity," examines the essential role played by standards in preparation for and response to natural disasters, with a particular focus on the ways standards can lessen the impacts of such disasters on affected organizations. The paper draws on Mr. Golden's experiences working on the recovery effort following 2012's Hurricane Sandy.
The second place-winning paper, "After the Disaster: Business Continuity," by Ms. Schimmelpfennig, looks at how natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and other disruptive events have challenged existing crisis-response approaches and emergency management systems. The paper discusses how these events have influenced related voluntary consensus standards and their adoption and use by government agencies and private sector organizations.
Mr. Golden will receive $2,500 in award money for his winning paper, while Ms. Schimmelpfennig will receive the $1,000 second-place prize. Both winners and their respective universities will receive certificates commemorating their selection.
For more information about the ANSI Committee on Education, please contact Lisa Rajchel (lrajchel@ansi.org).
About the ANSI Committee on Education
The ANSI Committee on Education (CoE) oversees all Institute initiatives related to standards and conformity assessment education and outreach, fulfills the objectives of the United States Standards Strategy (USSS), and responds to other issues that may be delegated by the ANSI Board of Directors, Executive Committee, or the National Policy Committee.