On the authority of the NATO Secretary General, Ms Cristina Palacios from Service Strategy and Dr Philip Eles from the Directorate of Application Services, were presented with NATO's highest honour, the NATO Meritorious Service Medal.
Ms Palacios and Dr Eles were presented with the Medal for their outstanding service to NATO at a ceremony held in The Hague on 30 March 2016.
Ms Palacios has made outstanding contributions to NATO in several aspects of testing, verification and validation of communications and information systems (CIS). These contributions far exceed the normal expectations of staff in the areas of improving NATO systems to protect our forces, ensuring the success of NATO exercises and working on a better CIS future for NATO.
Dr Philip Eles, as a member of the Operational Analysts team, played a key role in providing objective analyses of security indicators in support of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)/Resolute Support HQ's Afghan Assessment Group (AAG). Dr Phil Eles spent 2015 supporting AAG, 4 months of it in theatre. He took over the responsibility for the Afghan National Quarterly Assessment Research (ANQAR) surveys, ensuring their continuity and relevance to the needs of the new mission.
NCI Agency General Manager Koen Gijsbers presented the awards and emphasised the importance of the achievement by each recipient, both inside and outside of operational theatres.