Conference Speakers

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• Daniel M. Ferguson, Illinois Institute of Technology

  Daniel Ferguson is Senior Lecturer and Associate Director for Research and Operations, Interprofessional Studies Program, Illinois Institute of Technology. He is a Co-Investigator on the NSF Grant Creating a Service Learning Pathway in Interprofessional Studies. Dan has led over 40 IPRO projects at IIT, and is actively involved in the program evaluation activities. Prior to coming to IIT he was the Founder and CEO of the EDI Group, Ltd., an independent professional services company with over 30 staff and professional associates specializing in B2B electronic commerce and electronic data interchange; and a Vice President at First national Bank of Chicago, where he founded and managed the market leading professional Cash Management Consulting Group in banking and initiated the bank's non credit service product management organization and profit center profitability programs.

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• Henry Delcore, California State University - Fresno

  Dr. Henry D. Delcore is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Fresno. His research experiences include rural development and environmental change in Thailand and social and cultural conditions among Southeast Asian immigrants in Fresno. At Fresno State, Dr. Delcore leads an interdisciplinary initiative that teams undergraduate students from engineering, entrepreneurship and anthropology to develop commercially viable technological innovations. He is also involved in user experience research to generate ideas for designing better products and services. Dr. Delcore has a MS and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BS in Foreign Service, Asian Studies from Georgetown University.

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• June Ferrill, Rice University

  Dr. June Ferrill, founder of ChangeMakers, Inc. (www.change-makers.com), developed an entrepreneurship program for undergraduates at Rice University that includes a course entitled "New Ventures Communications," an entrepreneurial club, and mentoring from Rice alumni and others. She also teaches workshops on entrepreneurship as well as ethics within senior engineering design courses. She has provided consulting to Bank of America, Siemens, Accenture, Ernst & Young and the Texas Society of Professional Engineers, among others. Previously, she assisted project teams in defining and conceptualizing client studies and communications at McKinsey & Company. While employed at Halliburton, she developed a training program for engineering project managers. Dr. Ferrill holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where she also taught for five years.

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• Lisa Getzler-Linn, Lehigh University

  Lisa Getzler-Linn is the Associate Director of Lehigh University’s Integrated Product Development (IPD) program, a multi-phased program in which business, engineering and arts and sciences students work together to produce and market new products. She serves as director of the Lehigh Entrepreneurs Network and Thalheimer Student Entrepreneurs Competition. Along with guiding students through the venture creation and product development process, her interests and research focus on intellectual property issues for student entrepreneurs, ethics in entrepreneurship, and assessment of student performance in multi-disciplined, team-based courses.

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• Penny Hirsch, Northwestern University

  Dr. Penny Hirsch is the Associate Director of the Writing Program at Northwestern University. She teaches courses in expository writing, essay writing, and engineering communication. She co-directs Engineering Design and Communication (EDC), the Writing Program's cross-disciplinary course for freshmen in the McCormick School, and is also the project leader for communication in the National Science Foundation sponsored VaNTH (Vanderbilt-Northwestern-Texas-Harvard/MIT) consortium in biomedical engineering. Hirsch's research focuses on how people learn to write, how technology is changing the nature of writing, and communication in teams. Dr. Hirsch has a PhD from Northwestern University.

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• Margaret Huyck, Illinois Institute of Technology

  Dr. Margaret Hellie Huyck came to IIT in 1969 after completing her graduate work at the University of Chicago Committee on Human Development. She specializes in adult development and aging, with a special focus on how gender shapes development. Her contributions have been recognized within IIT with the Julia Beveridge Award for Outstanding Women at IIT. She is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She was awarded a Senior Science Policy Fellow by the American Psychological Association 1997-98; during that year she worked in the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health. Her community contributions for over a decade have centered on OWL, the Older Women's League. She is also active in the First Unitarian Church of Chicago.

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• Thomas M. Jacobius, Illinois Institute of Technology

  Tom Jacobius is Director of Interprofessional Studies and The Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program at Illinois Institute of Technology. Tom has developed and directed the IIT Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program (http://ipro.iit.edu) since its inception in 1995, and established the interprofessional team project course requirement as IIT's signature educational experience for all undergraduates and involving all graduate programs as well. Tom has also directed IIT's Office of Research Administration, established its technology transfer function and directed a technology commercialization centers as part of national and Illinois university networks. He has experience at IIT Research Institute, Motorola, Universal Oil Products and Clearing Machine Corporation in project management roles focused to research and development; new product feasibility analysis, development and testing; technology transfer and commercialization; and market research and business planning. Tom received the B.S. degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and the Master of Management degree from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

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• Peter Lykos, Illinois Institute of Technology

  Dr. Peter Lykos is Professor of Chemistry at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has taught undergraduate physical chemistry over many years, created a set of four senior courses in complementary aspects of computers and chemistry, created new graduate courses in aspects of physical chemistry, and served on many departmental committees that led to major revisions and upgrades of undergraduate and graduate curricula. His other contributions to IIT include the creation of the IIT Interactive Instructional Television system (IITV) and several major IIT-centered NSF sponsored "computers in education" projects, including outreach programs involving ten colleges and eight disciplines. In addition, during the 1960s, he created the first-ever Master of Science for Teachers in Computer Science (MST/CS) program. Lykos has more than 70 publications in journals ranging from the Journal of Chemical Physics to the Journal of Chemical Education. He has edited six books on computers and chemistry, two of which were published by John Wiley and four by the Books Division of the American Chemical Society.

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• Ann McKenna, Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Northwestern University

  Dr. Ann McKenna is the Director of Education Improvement in the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University. She holds a joint appointment as Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Social Policy and Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She also serves as Co-Director of the Northwestern Center for Engineering Education Research (NCEER). Her research focuses on the role of adaptive expertise in engineering education, design teaching and learning, and teaching approaches of engineering faculty. Dr. McKenna has a Ph.D. in Engineering, Science and Mathematics Education from the University of California, Berkeley, and a M.S. and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University.

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• Lisa McNair, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

  Dr. Lisa McNair holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and is an assistant professor of engineering education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is co-director of the Virginia Tech Engineering Communication Center, where she is developing communications curricula and assessment methodologies for engineering students and faculty. Her research interests include using linguistic analysis to study cognitive design and interdisciplinary and intercultural collaborations.

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• John Ochs, Lehigh University

  Dr. John Ochs joined the Lehigh University faculty in 1979 as an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering. He founded and directed the Computer-Aided Design Labs in the Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics Department from 1980 to 2001. He won the Dupont Young Faculty Award (1979-1983) and Lehigh’s Outstanding Young Faculty Award (1985). Since 1996, he has directed the University’s Integrated Product Development (IPD) Program. In 2006, he received the Olympus Innovation Award for his work in technical entrepreneurship through the IPD program. He is a member of the American Society of Engineering Educators and past chairman of its Entrepreneurship Division, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Acoustical Society of America. He is a member of the board of advisors for the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance’s Invention to Venture program.

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• William Oakes, Purdue University

  William Oakes is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Education and Interim Director of the EPICS Program at Purdue University. He earned his B.S.M.E. and M.S.M.E. from Michigan State University, worked as a design engineer for GE Aircraft En­gines, and earned his Ph.D. at Purdue. He is a recipient of the 2004 National Society of Professional Engineers Educational Excellence Award and Purdue's Charles B. Murphy Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award. He is an Indiana Campus Compact Fellow, Fel­low of Purdue's Teaching Academy, and a founding member of the Purdue Community of Service-Learning Fellows. He is a co-recipi­ent the National Academy of Engineering's 2005 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education and the recipient of the 2006 Campus Compact Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning.

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• Paul Swamidass, Auburn University

  Dr. Paul M. Swamidass is professor of operations management and the director of the Thomas Walter Center for Technology Management at the Ginn College of Engineering at Auburn University. He is an honorary Visiting Professor at Cranfield University, UK. He teaches Innovations and Technology Strategy in the B-E-T program and has taught Operations and Technology Strategy to MBA students. He has published over eighty items in the form of research papers, book chapters, conference proceedings and articles in professional journals. He edited the Encyclopedia of Production and Operations Management (2000) and the book Innovations in Competitive Manufacturing (hardcover 2001; paperback 2002). He is co-editor of the book Cross-Functional Management of Technology: Cases and Readings (1996). His research interests include technology commercialization, manufacturing technology, and manufacturing strategy.

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• Mary Raber, Michigan Technological University

  Mary Raber is the Associate Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) at Michigan Technological University. She is responsible for overall coordination and development of MTU’s Enterprise Program, and assists with program development of the newly created Pavlis Program for Global Technological Leadership. Her responsibilities include coordination of university and industrial interaction, interdisciplinary program curriculum and assessment, and workshop/course instruction. Before joining MTU she held various engineering and management positions during a 14 year career in the automotive industry. She received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Wayne State University.

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• Timothy Stearns, California State University - Fresno

  Timothy Stearns Dr. Timothy M. Stearns holds the Coleman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies and is Executive Director of the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at California State University, Fresno. He previously was a member of the management faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Marquette University. He also currently serves as Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. He is a co-founder of the National Network for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization www.n2tec.org, a nonprofit located in Rapid City, South Dakota. He is President of the Central Valley Business Incubator, a not for profit facility www.cvbi.org. Professor Stearns is also co-founder of Kids Invent! www.kidsinvent.com a company that sells creative hands on learning around the world. Dr. Stearns received his M.B.A. in management and PhD in management/sociology from Indiana University.

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• Richard Vaz, Worcester Polytechnic Institut

  Dr. Richard F. Vaz received his PhD in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), specializing in signal analysis and machine vision. He held systems and design engineering positions with the Raytheon Company, GenRad Inc., and the MITRE Corporation before joining the WPI Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty in 1987. He is currently Dean of Interdisciplinary and Global Studies at WPI, with oversight of WPI’s worldwide network of 24 Project Centers and an academic unit focusing on teaching and research in regional and local sustainability. His interests include service and experiential learning, engineering design and appropriate technology, and internationalizing engineering education. He has developed and advised interdisciplinary and technical student projects in Australia, England, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Namibia, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Thailand, and Washington, DC.

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• Yevgeniya Zastavker, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

  Dr. Yevgeniya Zastavker is an Associate Professor of Physics at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. Before joining Olin, Dr. Zastavker was a visiting assistant professor of Physics at Wellesley College, where she taught physics and performed biophysics research. Her current research interests are twofold: Dr. Zastavker is investigating the physico-chemical properties of various biological and synthetic self-assembling membranes that have significant biomedical and industrial applications; she also performs science/engineering education research vis-à-vis gender issues, a project that is done in collaboration with colleagues from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and TERC, Inc. She continues to work on the issues of women and minorities in science and engineering both through her research and active participation in various professional societies. Born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine, she came to the United States in 1990 having received two years of education at the Kiev Pedagogical College and a degree from one of Kiev 's Schools of Music. She graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in physics and holds a Ph.D. in biological physics from MIT.

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