The Security Industry Association (SIA) has named Marta García Gomar, chief technology officer for IDENTY Touchless ID, and Amy Turluck, director of the Biometrics Operations Directorate within the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), as the 2021 winners of the Women in Biometrics Awards — a program co-founded by SIA and co-presented with sponsors IDEMIA and the SIA Women in Security Forum. These distinguished biometrics and security leaders were recognized on Sept. 21 during the 2021 SIA GovSummit, SIA’s annual public policy and government security technology conference.

The Women in Biometrics Awards honor the efforts of top female leaders helping drive the biometric identity and security industry. Nominees and past winners include those working for biometric companies, peripheral suppliers, systems integrators, academia, government and security and IT departments at a variety of organizations in the United States and internationally.

“The annual Women in Biometrics Awards recognize the female leaders leading the way in the biometric identity and security industry, and this year’s winners have made impressive contributions to cutting-edge technologies like embedded voice biometrics and helped to detect fraud, enhance military readiness and homeland defense and promote safety and convenience in our daily lives,” said SIA CEO Don Erickson. “SIA applauds Marta García Gomar and Amy Turluck for their outstanding drive, innovation and leadership in this essential field and is proud to honor them.”

Marta García Gomar is a manager and biometrics-related innovation strategy consultant who serves as CTO for IDENTY Touchless ID. She advises biometrics startups on defining the road map to achieve business objectives and identifying resources, skills and gaps after assessing client resources and capabilities. With more than 25 patents she has developed unique expertise and knowledge in a wide range of markets where biometrics — particularly voice biometrics — add great value. In her career, Gomar has been responsible for defining and driving the development of embedded voice biometrics and presentation attack detection technologies according to market requirements; serving as an expert in security and performance requirements for embedded biometrics, strategic partnerships with technology enablers and technical customer engagement with main mobile user authentication providers and final customers; and spearheading biometrics innovation efforts in areas including personal voice assistants, user authentication and fraud detection in call centers, public security and criminal investigations. She holds a master’s degree in data science from MBIT Business School and both a specialization grade in technology innovation management and a telecommunications engineer degree from the Polytechnic University of Madrid.   

Amy Turluck is a senior leader with executive experience directing the work of large, diverse, geographically separated subordinate staffs, including foreign nationals, military, government employees and contractors globally. As the senior leader for the Biometrics Operations Directorate, she provides strategic vision, staff supervision and oversight of 20 government employees and 120 contractors, provides direct oversight of the DOD’s primary and authoritative biometric database employed by U.S. and coalition partners to globally identify enemy forces, advises the executive director of the Defense Forensics and Science Center on planning, organization and management of all technical and administrative functions associated with DOD biometrics and more. She holds a master’s degree in management from Webster University, a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement from Bowling Green State University and a TS/SCI security clearance.

Turluck and Gomar joined other government and security leaders at the SIA GovSummit, held in a hybrid in-person and virtual format, including keynote speaker Dr. David Mussington, executive assistant director of the Infrastructure Security Division at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). During the conference, SIA also honored Gabrielle Shea, public policy manager, government relations and public policy at NEC Corporation of America, with the 2021 SIA Industry Advocate Award.