Civilian AwardsCongratulations to thE |
Award Categories
- Outstanding Individual Leadership: Individual has shown bold leadership and innovative ways to promote Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), Affirmative Action, and Diversity.
- Excellence in Individual Achievement: Individual has made significant contributions toward AAPI representation at all levels .
- Diversity Excellence: Individual has shown a remarkable contribution towards diversity and inclusion through collaboration and against all odds.
OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL LEADERSHIP
Mrs. Shanti Perricone is serves as the Executive Assistant to the Section Chief of the Technology Innovation Section (TIS) in the FBI’s Information Management Division. She is the administrative coordinator to the executives in all meeting scheduling, travel, supplies, and finance within the section of TIS. She also executes administrative work section wide in maintenance of section organizational documents and posts them to the greater Bureau website. Mrs. Perricone is also the lead Accessibility Liaison (AL) overseeing the coordination and testing the accessibility of systems and ensuring 508 Compliance for the Division. She also supports the Executive Front Office of the division including organizing and managing logistic on all events that the TIS division leads.
Prior to the FBI, Mrs. Perricone worked in admissions in higher education for 7 years. There, she was a Senior Admissions Representative who worked with students daily. Mrs. Perricone trained new hires for her team, served as the Army Group school liaison on social media, and was chosen to assist on the Doctoral program development. Mrs. Perricone also was an event planner for 4 years and taught pre-school for 3 years.
Laureen Laglagaron is a Senior Attorney at the Federal Coordination and Compliance Section of the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice. She leads investigations involving allegations of discrimination by law enforcement agencies, courts, prosecutorial offices and other government agencies funded by the federal government. Her work includes enforcing, coordinating, and overseeing compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Executive Order 13166, Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency; and similar federal statutes and policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in federally-conducted and federally-funded programs. As a leading expert on language access, Ms. Laglagaron’s work focuses on national origin discrimination against persons with limited English proficiency.
Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Ms. Laglagaron was a Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute specializing in U.S. immigration and immigrant integration policy. She began her legal career providing direct legal services and community legal education to low-income Filipino American immigrants in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area at Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach as an Equal Justice Works Fellow. Ms. Laglagaron received her JD from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law where she received a certificate from the Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. Ms. Laglagaron holds a BA in Economics and Sociology/Anthropology from Swarthmore College.
Johnny T. Nguyen is currently the director of the Missions and Programs Assessment Division. In this position, he leads Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) activities in support of NASA's diverse portfolio of missions and programs, including spacecraft,< science payloads, launch vehicles, technology development and aeronautics. In addition, he provides the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance's primary interface with the NASA mission directorates and the center SMA organizations.
Prior to this role, Nguyen was the associate manager for Integration and Analysis in Gateway Deep Space Logistics located at Kennedy Space Center providing project management leadership for the logistics missions for Gateway in the areas of budget, resources, workforce, governance, contract management, configuration management, Risk Management, and life cycle schedule. Previously, Nguyen was an office chief in Kennedy SMA Directorate who provided leadership and direction for planning, organizing, and leading special projects and assuring that safe, efficient requirements, policies, practices, and processes were established. Nguyen also served as the Kennedy senior strategic advisor, providing strategic guidance to all levels of leadership. He helped to identify overall Kennedy goals and objectives and then communicated and aligned center priorities to meet the objectives of the NASA Strategic Plan. In April 2014, Nguyen graduated from the White House Initiative on Asian American and Pacific Islanders sponsored Senior Executive Service Development Program. Nguyen served as the chief of the Fluids Test and Technology Development Branch at Kennedy in October 2009. He was also the Kennedy Space Shuttle Transition and Retirement manager, which oversaw the strategy and execution on how to properly and most effectively transition the 300+ facilities and over one million line items of personal property located at Kennedy.
EXCELLENCE IN INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT
Hanako Wakatsuki-Chong is the Superintendent at the Honouliuli National Historic Site overseeing the development of the park and is currently the lead of the NPS Japanese American Confinement Sites Working Group.
She has approximately 14 years of experience in the museum and public history field; and has been in the National Park Service for 7 years working at other WWII sites including: Tule Lake National Monument, Minidoka National Historic Site, and Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
Prior to the National Park Service, Hanako worked for the Idaho State Historical Society and the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum. She recently served a 6-month detail as the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander policy advisor for the White House Office of the Chief of Staff. Hanako currently serves as the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) Hawai‘i and the Pacific Region Lead and is adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkin University.
Piyachat Terrell started her federal career as an outstanding scholar at NASA and joined EPA in 1998. Before joining the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as the director of Community Engagement and assistance, Piyachat worked on the agency’s diversity and inclusion efforts and established the EPA Pathways Programs Program. Piyachat leads the agency on the White House Initiative for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for AA and NHPI employees and communities. Piyachat is passionate about serving the communities and engaging students who are interested in environmental careers. She is also an art advocate who believes in the power of social and environmental change through art. She loves food and tennis equally.
Stacey Moy is the special agent in charge of the San Diego Field Office. Prior to San Diego Field Office, Mr. Moy served at the Washington Field office as the section chief, deputy assistant director and agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division and as special agent in charge of the office’s Intelligence and Incident Response Division.
Mr. Moy joined the FBI as a special agent in 2004. He was first assigned to work counterintelligence and espionage cases in the Washington Field Office, where he investigated penetrations of the U.S. Intelligence Community, media leaks, and economic espionage. Mr. Moy was promoted to supervisory special agent in 2009 and transferred to the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington and handled several major cases involving the targeting and acquisition of U.S. trade secrets by foreign adversaries. In 2011, he was promoted to field supervisor of a counterproliferation squad in the Oakland Resident Agency of the San Francisco Field Office. Since 2014, Mr. Moy held positions as unit chief of the Counterproliferation Center in the Counterintelligence Division at Headquarters, assistant section chief, assistant special agent in charge, and section chief. Within these positions, he engaged in efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and other technologies that threaten national security and investigated complex financial crimes, public corruption, civil rights, and violent crimes against children.
Mr. Moy graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy, serving in both the Surface Warfare and Naval Special Warfare communities before joining the FBI.
DIVERSITY EXCELLENCE
Dr. Supatranai Nopakun was born in Washington DC, USA but had spent most of his childhood overseas in Thailand, Philippines, Nepal, Israel, and Switzerland as a son of a diplomat. Dr. Nopakun returned to the United States for college and graduated from the University of Wisconsin Superior with a BS in Biology (2002), the University of Minnesota Duluth with a MS in Environmental Health & Safety (2005) and AT Still University with a Doctorate in Health Sciences (2015).
Dr. Nopakun started his career as an Safety Engineer with Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems, Northrop Grumman from 2006 to 2014 in San Diego, CA. He relocated to Washington DC in 2014 and worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a Safety Officer with Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, Inc (SGT). While there, he supported programs that included the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Planetary Defense Coordination Office. At both Northrop Grumman and SGT, he was instrumental as the safety focal within the Quality Assurance team in achieving the AS 9100 aerospace quality management system certification and the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program. In 2018, Dr. Nopakun joined The Boeing Company as an Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Specialist responsible for robotics, automation, and workplace safety. He also served as Chairman for the EHS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council overseeing the program for 500 employees in half a dozen countries.
In 2021, Dr. Nopakun relocated to Germany and currently works for Dental Health Command Europe as the Occupational Health and Safety Manager overseeing US Army safety programs for 12 US Army Dental Clinics in three countries. Dr. Nopakun also serves the US Army as an officer in the Reserves. He held various positions including Company Commander and Battalion Staff Officer; and had led Civil Affairs Operations in Afghanistan, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, the Netherlands, and Germany. Dr. Nopakun last served as a Military Attaché for various US Embassies in the Indo-Pacific region. In February of 2023, he was selected as the Deputy Commanding Officer for the newly flagged 163rd Regional Support Group in Grafenwoehr, Germany. Dr. Nopakun was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, and the Vierdaagse Cross. He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff Officers Course.
Caroline Goon, MS, MBA, is the Principal Strategist for the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, & Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) Employment Portfolio in the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a 2022 recipient of the NIH Director’s Award. Caroline is currently on detail through the end of April 2023 with the White House Initiative on AA and NHPIs (WHIAANHPI), as an Advisor and Lead Designated Federal Officer, supporting the President’s Advisory Commission on AA And NHPIs (PACAANHPI).
Before stepping full-on into the world of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), Caroline worked in the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) at NIH where she was a Career Development Program Lead. In that role, she helped to research, develop, and support opportunities to recruit, retain, and advance women in biomedical research careers. Caroline cares deeply for the community and is working to empower AA and NHPIs to find their voice and place in the workplace, and beyond. She is actively seeking and developing ways to intentionally cultivate multi-cultural coalitions to act as partners for greater impact.
Prior to NIH, Caroline spent over 12 years working at Georgetown University Medical Center and was the Assistant Dean of Strategic Initiatives and Marketing for Biomedical Graduate Education programs. She focused on the strategic development of education initiatives with international and domestic partners, recruited talented graduate students to the University and managed several biomedical graduate education programs for the University. Caroline was also the founding director of a specialized Career Strategy and Professional Development office that served 33 different biomedical graduate programs. In that capacity, she built on external relations and the creation of fresh programs/services to help students clarify their career goals, develop search strategies, and pursue job/graduate opportunities.
Ms. Mae Wu currently serve as the Deputy Under Secretary of Marketing and Regulatory Programs in USDA as appointed by President Biden. She works collaboratively to execute Secretary Vilsack’s vision across the Department to prioritize, develop, and implement regulatory policies, grant programs, strategic plans, improve DEIA, communications, and interagency collaboration. Prior to joining USDA, Ms. Wu served as a Senior Director at the Natural Resource Defense Council, helping to lead the organization’s health and food work. She has also worked with the federal government to revise the Total Coliform Rule, as well as served on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee and its National Drinking Water Advisory Council. Ms. Wu holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Rice University, a master’s degree in environmental policy from the University of Cambridge, and a Juris Doctor from Duke University.