Recently Dr. Jeffreys served as the Manager of the SupportDesk at WillowCSN Incorporated, helping independent contractor Cyberagents to keep their computers running for business purposes in their homes.
 

Dr. Jeffreys served as consultant to several companies where she used her extensive experience in the transaction card market for business planning, and to develop marketing plans and sales efforts.  Also during this period she worked with others to develop a method of securing magnetic striped transaction cards from fraud due to counterfeiting, copying, skimming and buffering.  She was awarded US patent number 5,770,846 as a result of this work.

Many companies have shown significant interest in improved magnetic stripe technology. These include the major Associations, MasterCard and Visa who have supported Dr. Jeffreys' research programs, terminal manufacturers such as VeriFone, Hypercom, Mag-Tek, KD Electronics and Xico, magnetic media suppliers such as 3M, and BASF, and users such as the Mass. Bay Transit Authority, Caltrans, and the United States Postal Service.

Dr. Jeffreys has been a frequent speaker at industry meetings around the world, and has traveled extensively to speak on Transaction Technology and the Automatic Transaction Market. These meetings include AIM, APTA, CardTech/SecurTech, ScanTech, Faulkner and Gray Symposia and Standards Committee meetings.
 

Dr. Jeffreys worked as a senior consultant with the Arthur D. Little company in Cambridge, Massachusetts for almost 25 years. A senior consultant is responsible for all marketing, quality and technological aspects of the Company's business in their area of expertise.

During her career with Arthur D. Little Inc., she worked in the following areas:

Dr. Jeffreys has spent many years working in the field of automatic transaction technology for financial systems. Her specific areas of expertise include magnetic cards, "Smart" cards, machine readable and remote readable cards and tags; data storage in optical, magnetic and solid state media; microprocessors, hardware and software; and data security and transmission.

She has worked as a consultant to MasterCard International for several years concerned with reliability and durability of Smart Cards, and Magnetic Cards. Dr. Jeffreys was the technical director and advisor for the MasterCard pilot of Smart Cards conducted in 1985-6. In 1986 and again in 1990 she conducted research programs to measure the read reliability of credit cards in the field. The result of this work was that both MasterCard and Visa became very conscious of the need to improve the reliability and security of the magnetic card system. Dr. Jeffreys worked with MasterCard particularly in the area of card reliability. She actively pursued techniques to improve the reliability/security of chip cards, magnetic cards and terminals.

She also worked with Visa International as a consultant to evaluate and monitor security systems and methods for magnetic cards. Visa is constantly conducting research and studies into various aspects of transaction processing. Dr. Jeffreys worked with Visa particularly in the area of credit card data security to prevent fraud with conventional cards. 

Dr. Jeffreys worked for several years consulting with the Federal Reserve Bank in the area of check image processing. There is a great deal of cost and delay involved with check transaction processing due to the handling of paper checks. The Federal Reserve Bank initiated a research project into Check Image capture and processing to minimize paper handling and storage costs. Primary contractors were IBM, and UNISYS. Dr. Jeffreys worked with the Bank to manage these projects.

Dr. Jeffreys pioneered the use of Smart Cards in the earliest days of the consideration of this technology for EBT, and met a number of times with the Food and Nutrition Service, of the US Department of Agriculture, the administration authority for this program.

For the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, she managed a technology assessment program for Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) as part of a feasibility study for AFC in New York. Of principal concern was the reliability and security of machine readable tickets for transportation purposes. The work was oriented to all modes of transportation in New York -- subway, bus and commuter rail. The result of the work was a plan for automatic fare collection (AFC) on public transit in New York. This system has now been built by Cubic Western Data of San Diego. The resultant fare medium, the Metrocard is being marketed widely by the New York Metropolitan transit Authority through a subsidiary as an electronic purse card.

Dr. Jeffreys was a principal team member in the development of an electronic money acceptor for vending machines for Mars Money Systems. This work made the Mars Money Systems' coin acceptor the most successful money acceptor being manufactured in the world today, capturing over 50% of the market for this type of equipment. Dr. Jeffreys, with others, has three patents issued as a result of this work. Tests conducted by the US Government Dept. of Transportation showed that these money acceptors were an order of magnitude more reliable than competitive products in high usage applications such as turnstiles in Public Transit.

Dr. Jeffreys was a principal team member for a study of automatic meter reading and of control and surveillance of electric power distribution systems. As a result of this study, a novel scheme for digital transmission over power lines was devised. This system was subsequently constructed and installed at the West Methuen substation of the Massachusetts Electric System and operated successfully as a pilot demonstration program for over one year. The system is now in revenue service with Florida Power and Light. Several patents have been granted as a result of this work. Dr. Jeffreys is one of the patent holders.
 

UNESCO:

Dr. Jeffreys was appointed by UNESCO as a visiting professor to the Middle East Technical University in Ankara Turkey. During this time she set up teaching and research programs for the Degrees of Bachelor, Master and Doctor in Electronics and Electrical Engineering.
 

Education:

Dr. Jeffreys was educated in England in the Electrical Engineering Department in Manchester University, where she obtained her B.Sc. with Honors in Electrical Engineering. After two years post graduate study, she was appointed to the academic staff of the University and subsequently obtained her M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees in Technology and Computer Science. Apart from her teaching at the University in the fields of electronics, and electron physics, she was active in research in data storage techniques using magnetics, electroluminescence, and fiber optics.
 

Patents

British Patents

980,171: Improvements in Electroluminescent Devices
This invention relates to electroluminescent devices and to methods of manufacturing such devices.

987,154: Digital Information Storage Apparatus
This invention relates to digital information storage apparatus and is concerned with a fixed store in which information is stored in binary form by means of light opaque and light transparent areas.

United States Patents

3,918,565: Method and apparatus for coin selection utilizing a programmable memory

ABSTRACT: Coin selection methods and apparatus are disclosed in which data representative of the examination of a coin is compared with data stored in a programmable memory.

3,952,851: Coin selection method and apparatus

ABSTRACT: A method and apparatus for use in identification of coins is disclosed in which a coin is passed through the electromagnetic field of an inductor in an oscillator circuit and the changes in both the frequency and amplitude of oscillation of said oscillator circuit are separately detected.

4,105,897: Cycloconverter apparatus and method for working into an active load

ABSTRACT: A cycloconverter apparatus and method is disclosed in which the cycloconverter works into an active load. The cycloconverter is connected between an external power source and a load so that the load current flows through the cycloconverter. In the preferred embodiment, the cycloconverter is used to impress a signaling voltage waveform upon the voltages of the three phases of an electric power distribution feeder. This voltage is impressed by injecting it between the common point of the wye-connected secondary of the substation transformer and the grounded neutral that serves all phases of the distribution feeder. The neutral current of the distribution feeder flows through the cycloconverter. Protective by-pass circuitry is provided to maintain the integrity of the neutral path in the event of a phase-to-neutral short circuit or a failure of the cycloconverter.

4,106,007:  Method and apparatus for transmitting intelligence over a carrier wave

ABSTRACT:  A method and apparatus for transmitting intelligence over a carrier wave are disclosed in which a signal wave is combined with a carrier wave to produce a composite wave having a recognizable pattern of variations in intervals that are defined by preselected locations in the composite wave. The pattern of variations in intervals resulting from the combination of the signal wave with the carrier wave represents at least a portion of the intelligence to be transmitted over the carrier wave. The intelligence is extracted from the composite wave for subsequent utilization. In the preferred embodiment the intelligence is transmitted over an electric power distribution network utilizing the alternating wave thereon as the carrier wave. The variations in intervals defined by the preselected locations in the composite wave are detected and the detected interval variations are converted into a signal which has a characteristic that is a function of the recognizable pattern of interval variations.

4,218,655:  Method and apparatus for transmitting intelligence over a carrier wave

ABSTRACT:  A method and apparatus for transmitting intelligence over a carrier wave are disclosed in which a signal waveform is added to a carrier wave to produce a composite wave having a recognizable pattern of variations in intervals that are defined by preselected locations in the composite wave. The pattern of variations in intervals resulting from the addition of the signal waveform to the carrier wave represents at least a portion of the intelligence to be transmitted over the carrier wave. The variations in intervals defined by the preselected locations in the carrier waves are detected and the detected interval variations are converted into a signal which has a characteristic that is a function of the recognizable pattern of interval variations. In the preferred embodiment the intelligence is transmitted over an electric power distribution network utilizing the alternating voltage therein as the carrier wave.

4,400,688:  Method and apparatus for communication over electric power lines

ABSTRACT:  A method and an apparatus for communicating over electric power lines in a direction from load to source is disclosed. The power line voltage wave is loaded in a predetermined pattern to produce a corresponding pattern of signaling currents at a receiving site. Detection of the signaling current is accomplished in the preferred embodiment by integrating the current in the phase or the neutral of the feeder that serves the signaling site during predetermined time windows which are synchronized with the power line voltage wave. The current integration is performed in accordance with a detection algorithm to accumulate principally the current differences that are attributable to the signaling currents while in the presence of steady and transient currents on the feeder.

5,770,846: Method and apparatus for securing and authenticating encoded data and documents containing such data

A method and apparatus for determining the distance between transitions from a first logical state to a second logical state stored on a medium (i.e., a document). This determination is used to precisely characterize the information pattern in order to authenticate the information and the medium on which the information is stored. The invention uses a reader having a leading and trailing read apparatus which allow information to be read simultaneously from two or more locations spaced a known distance apart. The distance between the centerlines of each read apparatus is preferably an odd integer multiple of one half the distance between logical clock transitions. The distance between a first transition at the leading read apparatus and a next transition at the trailing read apparatus is used as a reference (i.e., the "Reference Value"). The Reference Value is compared with the distance between the first transition and the next transition on the medium (i.e., the "Jitter Value"). Detection of an deviations in spacing between transitions is unaffected by variations in the velocity of the medium with respect to the reader.