DiFiglia Engineer of the Year

Donne Marie DiFiglia is the current Director of Chapters & International Outreach for the International System Safety Society and WebMaster for the Washington DC (WDC) Chapter. She is known nationally and internationally as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in Software and Systems Safety and Agile Methodologies. In August 2019, Ms. DiFiglia competed with over 450 engineers from more than 15 different countries and the USA to win the "Engineer of the Year" Award at the 37th International System Safety Conference in Norfolk VA.

During her term as President of the WDC Chapter (2015-2017) & under her capable leadership the WDC Chapter received the "Chapter of the Year Award" in 2016/2017- and again in 2019/2020! Ms. DiFiglia is very active as the appointed WDC Scholarship and Education Officer and has presented scholarships to seven deserving students at the College of Southern Maryland and certificates to deserving System Safety Engineers and members of the Society.

Ms. DiFiglia is an experienced web designer with over 60 working websites and has been the sole Webmaster for the Washington DC Chapter since 2007. She designed and developed the website for the very successful 2010 International System Safety Conference (ISSC) in Minneapolis MN and designed the logo and was co-developer of the website for the 2019 ISSC in Norfolk, VA.

Ms. DiFiglia is currently a Senior Principal Systems Safety Engineer. She has over 35 years of experience in Military Systems and Software Engineering. She completed the pre-medical curriculum at the State University of New York at Buffalo where she later taught. She received Masters certification in Real-Time Military Programming at Barrister, did her graduate studies in Computer Architecture at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and completed certification for Software Safety Engineering at the University of Southern California School of Engineering.

In her early career, Ms. DiFiglia was a Senior Computer Scientist developing software for Aegis and Aegis BMD at CSC in Dahlgren, VA. In response to an international incident, she was recruited to design and implement a set of improved Close Control Displays for the Aegis Class of Cruisers and Destroyers. Ms. DiFiglia received a U.S. Navy Commendation for her design which is now in use on Aegis ships. She received several other Naval awards including an award for fixing a vital sensor system onboard the DDG 72 USS Mahan. She was an Aegis Trainer and one of the chief developers of the software for the Training Consoles at the Aegis Training and Readiness Center (ATRC) in Dahlgren, VA.

Ms. DiFiglia sat on the Weapon System Explosives Safety Review Board (WSESRB) and the Software System Safety Technical Review Panel (SSSTRP) as a Software Safety Expert and served as deputy to the SSSTRP chairman and WDC Chapter Past-President Mr. David Shampine, with whom she co-authored a paper, “Examining the Use of Model-Based Development and Autocode Generation Tools in Safety-Critical Systems”. She collaborated with the former WSESRB Chair, Mr. Edward W. Kratovil to develop policy for Joint Service Safety Review of Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard systems. She is an experienced instructor and trains military and civilian personnel in Systems & Software Safety and Agile Methodologies.