The 2005 Robert J. Painter Award honors the contributions of Bert M. Coursey, Ph.D., standards executive in the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C. The Standards Engineering Society and ASTM International, which administer the award, cited Coursey's exceptional service in advancing the cause of voluntary standardization for homeland security.

Coursey, who lives in Frederick, Md., is a member of ASTM Committee E54 on Homeland Security Applications. An ASTM International member since 2003, Coursey has been an advocate for the development and application of voluntary standards for homeland security. He has spearheaded multiple outreach programs to the standards community that have enabled interaction between the volunteer membership of several standards developing organizations (SDOs) and the staff of the DHS Virtual Standards Office.

Before joining the Department of Homeland Security, Coursey was division chief for radiation standards at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. He had held other positions at NIST as a group leader for medical physics and a chemist, and his work there included radiation dosimetry, medical physics, and radioactivity standards. Prior to NIST, he was an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers.

In his current position, Coursey is involved with the design and implementation of a national program for standards for homeland security, which includes performance standards and testing and evaluation protocols for personal protective and operational equipment. Author of more than 80 publications on radioactivity standards and applied radiation dosimetry, Coursey is editor of the journal Applied Radiation and Isotopes. He has been honored with the Army Commendation Metal, and Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals from the Department of Commerce.

Outside ASTM International, Coursey is a member of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, where he is also a fellow, the American Chemical Society, the American National Standards Institute Homeland Security Standards Panel, the Association of Analytical Chemists, the Council on Ionizing Radiation Measurements and Standards, Sigma Xi, and he is a member and past president of the International Committee for Radionuclide Metrology. Coursey is a recipient of the NIST Allen Astin Measurement Sciences Award.

Coursey graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens with a B.S. in chemistry, where he also earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry.

Release #7214