Rising Star John Araujo
Araujo provided IT analysis and support for CDC’s public health initiatives. An expert in public health informatics, he supports both the Office of the Chief Science Officer and the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
Name : John Araujo (pronounced a-rah-ho)
Age: 55
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Title: Public health informatician
Nominated for: Providing IT analysis and support for CDC’s public health initiatives. An expert in public health informatics, he supports both the Office of the Chief Science Officer and the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
First IT mentor: Hal S. Beech, network design engineer, Sprint, a scholar, computer scientist, network design engineer and exceptional professional. He provided the opportunities, training and support to develop enterprise awareness, skills and knowledge. The opportunity he provided and his mentorship have been revealed directly or indirectly in many of the accomplishments cited for my nomination for the Rising Star award.
Latest accomplishment: 2008 Public Health Information Network Conference Workshop. This was a hands-on workshop titled “Networking-in-a-Minute”; it was developed to train public health responders to rapidly set up a local-area network, where there was none, for just-in-time data sharing to support common information needs and decision-making during a disaster. For the data-sharing portion of the demonstration, we landed upon a Web-based, open-source software application called Sahana (www.sahana.lk). The network was not the end game, however, but merely a tool. Our goal was to demonstrate how a “just-in-time” network, created ad hoc, could make on-the-spot data sharing possible for public health decision-making during emergent situations.
Career highlight: I am most honored that I was trusted to serve the CDC and public health by both Dr. Tanja Popovic, the agency’s chief science officer, and Jim Seligman, the agency’s chief information officer.
Favorite bookmark: WindowsSecrets.com
Dream non-IT-related job: President’s national security adviser
Read a full profile of John Araujo on FCW.
The annual Rising Star awards are presented by the 1105 Government Information Group, publisher of Federal Computer Week, GCN and Washington Technology, to public and private sector employees in the federal IT community who have gone above and beyond their job descriptions to make a lasting impact in their organization. See all the 2009 Rising Star award winners.