Contact: Bob Nelson For immediate release (212) 854-5573 April 24, 1997 rjn2@columbia.eduAnna Kazanjian Longobardo, an alumna of the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science and Trustee Emerita of Columbia University, adds another first to her portfolio: She is the first woman to receive the Egleston Medal for distinguished engineering achievement, the Engineering School Alumni Association's highest award. Columbia's President George Rupp will present the medal at ceremonies in the Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research May 31, during Reunion Weekend. "I'm immensely honored to be recognized by the engineering alumni," Mrs. Longobardo said. "But I am also very pleased that the recognition is for my work, not for my being a woman in engineering or for being the first at anything. "Whatever the assignment was, I just went ahead and did the work. I never thought about being the first." The medal, first awarded in 1939, is given annually to a graduate of the school in recognition of the notable application of engineering principles, the development of processes or techniques, or the furtherance of a specific branch of the profession. The medal is named for Thomas Egleston Jr., professor and founder in 1864 of the Columbia College School of Mines, from which the present School of Engineering and Applied Science is descended. As the senior woman executive at the Unisys Corporation defense unit, Mrs. Longobardo headed a worldwide organization supporting complex military systems and weather radar systems in more than 100 locations from 1988 to 1995, when she retired from the firm, a manufacturer of information systems. She joined Unisys in 1965 and held a number of technology management positions. Previously at Unisys, she served as program manager for a number of Air Force programs to develop and test radiation-tolerant computers. The Federal Highway Administration also hired Unisys to analyze accident patterns, and she managed the firm's project to study which roadway geometries, such as curves or T-intersections, had the greatest number of accidents. Decades earlier, at United Technologies Corp., she was among the first women to work on board submarines, destroyers and other U.S. Navy vessels, as she designed, developed and evaluated a submarine-towed buoy used to calibrate sonar. Her innovative design increased navigational accuracy for submarines operating below periscope depth. Since 1989, Mrs. Longobardo has been a member of the board of Woodward Clyde Group, Inc., a geotechnical and environmental engineering company that conducts air, water and soil-quality assessments and undertakes remediation projects. She chairs the board's Executive Compensation Committee. She was the first woman to receive the B.S. in mechanical engineering from Columbia in 1949, after attending a pre-engineering program at Barnard College. She earned the M.S. in mechanical engineering, with honors, from the University in 1952. She was also the first woman to head the Engineering Alumni Association, 1977 to 1979, and the first woman president of the University's Alumni Federation, serving from 1981 to 1985. She received the Alumni Federation's Alumni Medal in 1980 for her service to the University and was the first woman chairman of the Columbia Engineering Council, a group of industry leaders who advise the engineering dean, from 1987 to 1991. She served as University Trustee from 1990 to 1996 and was a member of the Executive Committee. While still an undergraduate at Columbia, she helped found the National Society of Women Engineers, which elected her a fellow in 1991. Mrs. Longobardo resides with her family in Bronxville, N.Y., where she serves on the Planning Board and chairs its Design Review Committee. This document is available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/. 4.24.97 19,108 Longobardo, Woman Engineer, Adds Another First: Egleston Medal From Columbia's Engineering Alumni