2023 Julie B. Kerr Award for Excellence in Research

Karen Ball received the 2023 Julie B. Kerr Award for Excellence in Research. The award is named in honor of a late Center for Communications Research, La Jolla researcher. The award is meant for an IDA employee who has demonstrated research excellence and exceptional analytic achievement in the IDA research community.

Karen joined CCR-L as a Research Staff Member in 2005, and she became the first Assistant Director for Research at an IDA Center earlier this year. She has contributed to a huge array of projects in her 18 years with IDA.

A distinguished researcher, Karen is well regarded for how she works all phases of a problem: framing the problem, developing algorithms to solve it, implementing the new algorithms, delivering the solution to the sponsor, helping them through the adoption process, and staying in contact with the sponsor to make any adjustments to address specific mission needs. Karen executes each phase seamlessly, all while bringing others on board and helping them succeed at their own parts of the mission.

Karen has been recognized with other awards, including an NSA Director's Coin. Projects to which she has been a major contributor include a National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation and two Sir Peter Marychurch Awards.