Executive Board

Magaly Drant runs the Office of the CTO and the Engineering Operations Department at ServiceNow, reporting into the CTO and EVP of DevOps. ServiceNow provides enterprise cloud computing solutions that define, manage, and automate services for enterprises worldwide. Magaly focuses on scaling the technology organization to support the growth: from angles as varied as executive relationship with our largest customers, talent acquisition and development strategy, engineering processes development and automation, implementation standards definition and adoption, and technical architecture. In previous roles, she has contributed to and ran software engineering teams (platform and applications development) across a variety of technical stacks. Born and raised in France, Magaly graduated with a master's degree in General Engineering from Ecole Centrale de Paris.

Bringing over 20 years of experience in the energy and space industries, Dr. Roberto Vasquez joined General Atomics’ Energy Group as the Chief Operating Officer in August 2016, where he oversees key company programs, financials and business development.

Prior to joining General Atomics, Dr. Vasquez held numerous leadership roles at Leidos, SAIC, Boeing, and Hughes.

At Leidos, he was Vice President of Technical Services, responsible for 2200 employees and $750M P&L. While at SAIC, he served as Senior Vice President, National Security Space – overseeing P&L for the $150M organization – before moving to Senior Vice President of ISR and Space Solutions.

Dr. Vasquez held positions across Boeing’s satellite engineering programs, leading company growth initiatives, managing multiple teams and streamlining operations.

Dr. Vasquez served as the general manager with full P&L responsibility of Boeing Electron Dynamic Devices, Inc. (EDD). With revenues over $150M, EDD was a major supplier of satellite bus and payload electronics to space and defense clients and was acquired by L-3 Communications in 2005.

Before managing EDD, Dr. Vasquez led general engineering efforts for all U.S. Air Force satellite programs within Boeing and directed the Design Center with responsibility for commercial satellite bids.  Prior to leading the Design Center, Dr. Vasquez was the Program Manager at Hughes Space and Communications for the Thuraya satellite program, the backbone for the first successful commercial satellite-based mobile communication system in the world.

Dr. Vasquez earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Masters and Ph.D. degree in Engineering from Stanford University, and a Masters of Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Accel Robotics is a technology company that makes a proprietary computer vision-powered software and hardware system that eliminates the need for traditional checkout, freeing employees who would otherwise be cashiering to service ultrafast delivery of grocery and convenience items to customers.

Our core technology product combines software, hardware, and AI to create a multi-sensor perception system capable of accurately and reliably tracking multiple people and their interactions with merchandise. Ultimately, this system produces rich data that automates operations and classifies behavior.

We deploy our technology across a number of smart formats, including walk-in community markets that link 24/7 cashier-less shopping with on-demand delivery, small-format walk-up stores, and efficient micro-fulfillment centers (MFCs).

By deploying a network of these tech-enabled formats, Accel Robotics is laying the groundwork for the next evolution of “Intelligent Quick Commerce” with efficient, ultrafast delivery and 24/7 convenience that meets the needs of tomorrow’s consumers.

Currently leading an organization comprised of 3 teams with 24 people. Responsible for key
parts of Amazons PrimeNow and Fresh businesses. I direct the product roadmap, software
development, and operational excellence for these teams. We own systems that handle 250k+
TPS in sub-millisecond latency with 99% uptime and 24/7 engineering support.

Hugo Romero is the Head of Product Security Office for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). He spearheads a team with the mission to design state of the art security into AMD products, manage security incidents and partner with customers to ensure products built with on AMD platforms are secure. 
 
Prior to Joining AMD, Hugo spent 24-years at Qualcomm. His tenure began while he was still a student at UCSD. He joined as a summer intern and was offered to stay on part time during the school year. Hugo has a broad skillset in software and hardware development. After leading multiple teams through successful product launches, Hugo was invited to join the Qualcomm Government Solutions Group, where he led the development of secure communication devices that included IOT devices, Mobile Devices, Small Cells, and Core Networks. It is during this assignment where Hugo became passionate about device security.
 
Hugo graduated from the UCSD CSE department with a degree in Computer Engineering. As a student, he was very active and passionate in promoting STEM in the Hispanic community.  In his senior year, he was the president of the UCSD chapter of Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers (SHPE).

Brendan Ahern is the Founder and CEO of AMV, Inc. He founded AMV in 2018, the company is focused on the development of Fully-Autonomous Food Service Systems. Brendan has a passion to utilize robotics and automation to improve efficiency, lower cost, and insure cnsistency of direct-to-consumer food service. Following three years as a Financial Representative with Northwestern Mutual, in 2015 he joined a leading AgTech firm, Ahern Agribusiness, as a Management Trainee. He worked with such notable companies as Bayer, Syngenta, HM Clause, Prospera Technologies, and Enza Zaden. Brendan received his BA from Southern Methodist University and his MBA from The Rady School of Management at UCSD. Brendan has served on the Board of Directors for the Diabetes Research Connection. He was a member of the SMU Football team.

Krijn van der Raadt is a Sr. Director of Software Engineering at AppFolio. AppFolio creates complete, easy-to-use, cloud-based software for multiple vertical markets. Their main engineering offices are in Santa Barbara and San Diego, but they also have a major hub in Dallas. Their products include cloud-based property management software (AppFolio Property Manager) and investment management software (AppFolio Investment Management). Krijn leads the engineering team in San Diego, helping their engineers learn and grow, while building an indispensable product for their customers. He has a Masters in Computer Science from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and came to San Diego as a research scholar at SDSC / UCSD.

Analog/RFIC product development experience (DC to 10 GHz) for wireless communication and optical applications

Track record of bringing multiple cutting-edge RFICs from concept to the industry’s highest volumes in production with top tier mobile device OEMs

Alex Schafgans is Sr. Director of EUV Source Engineering at ASML, the global leader in EUV photolithography tools used in the production of advanced logic and memory. In his current role, Schafgans is responsible for overseeing engineering execution across most Source technology areas, as well as ensuring the performance of all worldwide EUV sources meet or exceed customer expectations, while driving knowledge creation to solve the most persistent and challenging performance problems facing the EUV source products. In his previous roles over his 11-year tenure at ASML, Schafgans was focused on leading EUV power scaling activities from 10W through 500W, resulting in the successful introduction of EUV for High Volume Manufacturing. Alex is a graduate of UC San Diego, with B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics.

Dr. Sur serves as Vice President, Business Development at ATA Engineering, Inc. and brings more than 20 years of experience to the ATA team. ATA is an engineering consulting firm that provides innovative solutions through test-and analysis-driven design by focusing on the engineering needs of manufacturers in addressing their cost, quality, and time-to-market challenges for mechanical and aerospace systems. Prior to ATA, Dr. Sur was a senior research scientist in the Naval Hydrodynamics Division at SAIC (now Leidos), where she was the principal investigator for research and development contracts with U.S. naval customers. Prior to SAIC, Dr. Sur began her career as a member of the technical staff in the Thermal and Propulsion Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Sur received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and her B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Robert Balderas has more than 25 years of leadership experience in both academia and the biotechnology industry. As a corporate scientist, site manager and marketer in the field of biotechnology he has contributed to the growth in both Pharmingen and BD Biosciences. Robert has championed multiple key successful product launches and is recognized for his success in growing sales and profits. His experience in academic medicine accompanied by his strategic approaches as the VP of Research and Development is reflected in increased efficiencies within the Clinical and Research product development programs. Robert Balderas's track record of business process improvements is based on his expertise obtained while working at The Scripps Research Institute in the labs of Frank Dixon and Argyrios Theofilopoulos. He is known for his ability to motivate his technical staff, diagnosing impediments in product development programs, building his efforts and focused on both product execution and career development of his staff as well as integrating functional programs across other business operations. In addition his scientific experiences, Robert also received an MBA from the University of San Diego. Additionally, Robert also serves on the editorial board of Clinical Proteomics, has been involved with several business acquisitions (and lead two industrial/academic initiatives with CANVAC and the NCI).

Scott Loebig serves as vice president of research and development as BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.  In his role, Loebig focuses on an ecosystem of software technology solutions that are leveraged across BD to enable digital solutions that drive category innovation.

Loebig joined the company in March 2015, upon the acquisition of the CareFusion Corporation, a San Diego–based global medical technology corporation that provides products and services to help hospitals improve safety and care quality.

Prior to his current role, Loebig served as vice president of research and development focused on cloud and data solutions for BD.  He also served in multiple research and development leadership roles at CareFusion and Cardinal Health.

Alan joined Bentley in 2010 as part of Bentley's acquisition of Enterprise Informatics, where he served as CEO. He leads Bentley’s Industry Solutions Team, which is responsible for Bentley’s digital twin solutions advancing and sustaining infrastructure assets used in transportation, energy, water and cities.  Prior to Bentley, Alan spent 20 years in various roles leading technical product management and service teams in the energy, manufacturing, automotive and aerospace industries.

Alan holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton.

Dr. Slaven Moro leads BMC’s product development teams, focused on designing, building, and delivering the next generation of space-based connectivity products.

Prior to joining BMC, Dr. Moro held engineering leadership roles at Amazon, Facebook, and General Atomics.

Slaven is a triple UC San Diego alumnus, having received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Jacobs School of Engineering.

John Black is the SVP, Strategy at Brain Corp.  He is primarily focused on establishing and enabling partnerships for new robotic products and applications based on BrainOS technology.  He joined Brain Corp as VP of Engineering in 2015 to lead the development and commercialization of the first fully autonomous floor scrubber, since then the fleet has reached more than 25k robots with over 10 million hours of commercial operation!  He received his BSME from Carnegie Mellon University and a MSME from Oakland University, and is a certified Functional Safety Engineer (TÜV Rheinland).

Vijay Pujar is Principal Technical Fellow and Discipline Lead, Materials and Processes at Collins Aerospace, a unit of Raytheon Technologies. He has over 20 years of experience leading advanced composites and manufacturing technology development for commercial aerospace and military applications. Vijay received his undergraduate degree in Ceramic Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi, India, and his Masters and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Waguih S. Ishak joined Corning in 2007 to establish a new Silicon Valley facility, the Corning West Technology Center (CWTC) in Palo Alto, California. CWTC was chartered to build strong relationships with high-tech industries and academia in Silicon Valley and grew to conduct advanced research on high-speed interconnects, novel displays, and embedded sensors. The Center moved to Sunnyvale in 2017 and is now called Corning Technology Center – Silicon Valley (CTCSV).

In May 2016, Ishak was appointed Division VP & Chief Technologist, responsible for strategic connections to Silicon Valley hotspots, VCs, startups and academia. From 2007 to May 2016, Ishak was the Division VP of Science & Technology and also the Director of CWTC. From 2005 to 2007, Ishak was the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Avago Technologies (now Broadcom). From 2003 to 2005, Ishak was the Vice President and Director of the Photonics & Electronics Research Lab at Agilent Labs responsible for R&D programs in photonics, high-speed electronics, sensors, semiconductor tests, wireless communications and consumer electronics. From 1987 to 2003, Ishak was the Director of the Communications & Optics Research Laboratory at Hewlett-Packard Labs, working on photonics and integrated electronics. From 1978 to 1987, Ishak was a Scientist/Project Manager for bubble memories, SAW devices and MSW devices.

Ishak has authored approximately 100 journal and conference papers, and four chapters in the “Handbook of Electronic Instruments.” He was named an inventor on seven U.S. patents. He is on the technical advisory boards of USC, UCSDS, SCU, UCSB, and McMaster University. He was a member of the National Academics Committee on “Harnessing the Light” to write the book “Optics & Photonics – Essential Technologies for Our Nation,” 2013, resulting in the White House announcement of the Integrated Photonics Manufacturing Institute on October 2014. In 2016, Ishak was selected a member of the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technologies (VCAT) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Ishak received a B.S.E.E. (hon.) from Cairo University in 1971 and a B.S. in mathematics (hon.) from Ain Shams University, Egypt, in 1973. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D., both in electrical engineering, from McMaster University, Canada, in 1975 and 1978, respectively. Ishak obtained the Stanford University Executive Program in 1999 and was awarded a Doctor of Science honoris causa from McMaster University in 2018. Ishak is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), and received the University of California Exemplary Service Award in 2015. Ishak is also an adjunct Professor with The Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University.

Jeffrey Lowinger is the senior vice president of Cubic Corporation and president of Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS). He will be responsible for overseeing the business’ continued growth and advancing Cubic’s NextCity™ strategic priorities. 

Prior to joining Cubic, Lowinger was the president of the eMobility segment for Eaton Corporation, a new organic growth segment announced in March of 2018 to provide intelligent power electronics, power systems and advanced power distribution, in addition to circuit protection products and solutions for the automotive and commercial vehicle industry. Since the launch of the segment, the business achieved over $450 million in mature year revenue of new business. He oversaw the global profit and loss (P&L) for sales, marketing, development, production and services for all power management technologies for on- and off-road vehicles. Prior to leading eMobility, Lowinger served as the senior vice president of engineering and chief technology officer for the company’s industrial sector where he was responsible for leading the technology maturation for the aerospace, vehicle and hydraulics portfolio as well as overseeing the commercialization for new product development for specific customer applications.

Lowinger successfully completed a 25-year career at Boeing where he held several engineering leadership roles managing complex hardware/software development programs for all key rotorcraft programs. He was also the executive vice president of engineering, Xworx and commercial business at Bell Helicopter, where he oversaw the $1.5 billion global commercial business in addition to leading innovation and technology for Bell’s Xworx organization.

He is active in promoting science and technology and has served on the advisory boards at Rutgers University, Texas Christian University, Penn State University and Concordia University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers University. Lowinger also completed executive education programs at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University and Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Senior Program Manager with over 20 years of experience leading global multi-disciplinary product development teams. Proven record delivering complex electro-mechanical products to market in entrepreneurial environments, from initial concept through technical development, manufacturing transition and post-production support. Acquired extensive knowledge of offshore development and manufacturing.
Strong technical background in product development, excellent teamwork and communication skills,
Vision oriented, high customer focus, able to thrive in a fluid environment, pragmatic. Fluent in both English and Spanish.

Specialties: Program management
Product Development Process
TQM
Problem Solving
Robust Design

A 25-year veteran of the Silicon Valley and Seattle technology scenes, Sam Ramji led Kubernetes and DevOps product management for Google Cloud, founded the Cloud Foundry foundation, has helped build two multi-billion dollar markets (API Management at Apigee and Enterprise Service Bus at BEA Systems) and redefined Microsofts open source and Linux strategy from extinguish to embrace. He is nerdy about open source, platform economics, middleware, and cloud computing with emphasis on developer experience and enterprise software. He is an advisor to multiple companies including Dell Technologies, Accenture, Observable, Fletch.ai, and the Linux Foundation. Sam received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from UCSD in 1994 and is still excited about artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology.

Ken has over 20 years of experience as a technology leader, working for some of the largest global tech companies. Ken's experiences span Enterprise Network Innovation, Service Chaining, SDN, Internet Scale and Branch Office Routers, Data Center Switches, Security, Wan and Application Optimization, Server Load Balancing and Wireless LAN technologies. 

In leading the OTCO Research Office (ORO) he primarily focuses on ensuring that the company is well aware of emergent technology inflections and the potential impact to the company. This work has led to exploration in a myriad of future impact technologies such as Quantum computing, Carbon Nanotube Memory, Heterogeneous computing acceleration and virtualization, to name a few.

He is an accomplished speaker at many industry events, on a wide range of topics.

Ken achieved Distinguished Engineer at Cisco, has 60 granted patents and a several more patents pending.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Scott Zoldi is Chief Analytics Officer at FICO and is responsible for the analytic development of FICOs product and technology solutions. While at FICO, Scott has been responsible for authoring 120 analytic patents, with 71 patents granted and 49 in process. Scott is actively involved in the development of new analytic products, purpose-built machine learning algorithms, and frameworks of responsible AI. Scott is most recently focused on Ethical AI and Unsupervised Machine Learning. Scott serves on two boards of directors, including Tech San Diego and Cyber Center of Excellence. Scott received his Ph.D. in theoretical computational physics from Duke University.

Warfighter focused engineering and design is the mantra that Sumner continually promotes as the CEO of Fuse.  His time in uniform, as a SPAWAR project manager, and as a part of the commercial design industry fuels a unique approach to rapid prototyping and an intense focus on transition of technology to operational use. Fuse applies the best practices of commercial Design Thinking to military and government systems engineering, and Sumner pushes hard every day to keep the Fuse team intensely focused on the warfighter.

As a Naval Aviator Sumner learned the importance of agility when leading air crews, maintenance teams, and detachments through deployed flight operations.  As a project manager at SPAWAR Sumner developed an understanding of systems engineering processes behind Navy and Joint technology solutions.  Now, Sumner leads Fuse in designing and developing state of the art, intuitive, networked C4I solutions that are focused on the user.

After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy Sumner went on to graduate first in his class from flight school and flew H-46 helicopters through two deployments with the HC-11 Gunbearers out of San Diego.  Staying in San Diego, Sumner took a position leading the SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific airborne networking team where he built a small group of visionary engineers that delivered secure, multi-level IP network connectivity to over six type-model-series aircraft including E-2C, EP-3, P-3 AIP, P-8, Triton and others.  Sumner was a plankowner of the Joint Tactical Edge Networking working group, and while at SPAWAR he won three ONR Rapid Technology Transition projects, co-wrote the technical plan for the $70 million CABLE Joint Capability Technology Demonstration, transitioned two airborne networking programs from projects into Programs of Record, and earned an Exemplary Achievement Award.

Sumner earned an MBA from The University of Southern California, and transitioned from the government to the commercial design world to work as Director of Business Development at RKS Design, an internationally recognized strategy development and product design firm with over 60 global awards. At RKS Sumner came to appreciate the value of human centered design and the Design Thinking approach.

Sumner started Fuse Integration with a vision to deliver exceptional results for the user through application of Design Thinking processes, blended with DoD systems engineering, Agile development, and rapid prototyping.  Fuse has grown to a team of over 85 personnel since being founded in 2010, and now provides products and engineering support to Navy, USMC, USAF, and Army customers.  The Fuse team is over 40% veterans and includes a blend of operational experience and technical expertise in multiple engineering disciplines.  Fuse has been recently awarded multiple Phase III SBIR contracts, one of which was awarded in less than two years from project kickoff.

I’m a Product Development leader who innovates and delivers complex profitable offerings for biomedical companies pursuing sustaining or disruptive technologies.

How I deliver is by connecting mechanical and software engineering with business disciplines into a structured team effort from concept to market. 

My career includes extensive experience for both established and start-up biomedical and electronics companies including Life Technologies, Axiom Biotechnologies / Sequenom, and Aurora Biosciences. Currently I serve as Head of Technical Engineering for Symbient Product Development.

My achievements include:

 A RECORD OF INNOVATION including eight patents for biomedical instruments an disposables.

STREAMLINING THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE by bringing entrepreneurial and lean Six Sigma perspectives into all phases from needs definition to marketing to manufacturing transfer.

BUSINESS AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS of a major life science corporation by combining science, software, and engineering to develop a new portfolio of successful products.

COMMERCIALIZED PRODUCTS FOR LABORATORY RESEARCH AND HEALTHCARE including:

Macro-to-micro sample preparation for nanofluidic chip,

Fluidic interface for fully implantable smart infusion device providing drug delivery,

Handheld device for amplification of DNA and detection of target organisms,

In-vitro diagnostic platform for isothermal amplification and detection of pathogens,

Sample preparation instruments and their microfluidic cartridges.

SPECIALTIES: Product Design and Development, Medical Devices, Testing Instruments, Laboratory Research Instruments, Diagnostic Tools, Drug Delivery Systems, Emerging Technologies, Regulatory Strategy, Technical / Business Milestone Development, Team Leadership, Concept Development, Prototyping, Testing and Analysis, Process Development

Bringing over 20 years of experience in the energy and space industries, Dr. Roberto Vasquez joined General Atomics’ Energy Group as the Chief Operating Officer in August 2016, where he oversees key company programs, financials and business development.

Prior to joining General Atomics, Dr. Vasquez held numerous leadership roles at Leidos, SAIC, Boeing, and Hughes.

At Leidos, he was Vice President of Technical Services, responsible for 2200 employees and $750M P&L. While at SAIC, he served as Senior Vice President, National Security Space – overseeing P&L for the $150M organization – before moving to Senior Vice President of ISR and Space Solutions.

Dr. Vasquez held positions across Boeing’s satellite engineering programs, leading company growth initiatives, managing multiple teams and streamlining operations.

Dr. Vasquez served as the general manager with full P&L responsibility of Boeing Electron Dynamic Devices, Inc. (EDD). With revenues over $150M, EDD was a major supplier of satellite bus and payload electronics to space and defense clients and was acquired by L-3 Communications in 2005.

Before managing EDD, Dr. Vasquez led general engineering efforts for all U.S. Air Force satellite programs within Boeing and directed the Design Center with responsibility for commercial satellite bids.  Prior to leading the Design Center, Dr. Vasquez was the Program Manager at Hughes Space and Communications for the Thuraya satellite program, the backbone for the first successful commercial satellite-based mobile communication system in the world.

Dr. Vasquez earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Masters and Ph.D. degree in Engineering from Stanford University, and a Masters of Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Lawrence Woolf is a technical fellow at General Atomics (GA) Aeronautical Systems, Inc. in San Diego. He received a Ph.D. in low temperature condensed matter physics from UCSD in 1980 and a BA in physics from Rutgers College in 1975. Woolf joined GA in 1982 after a post-doc at Exxon. He has been project manager or lead scientist for over 50 programs involving the design, development, and/or production of a variety of advanced materials. He is the author or co-author of 73 scientific publications in materials physics and energy conversion systems, holds 24 patents, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

He is also President and Chairman of the Board of the GA Sciences Education Foundation, where he initiated the GASSSS program that has catalyzed the involvement of over 900 employees in K-12 STEM education outreach, brought the TutorMate program to GA, and has managed the disbursement of over $900,000 in funding to STEM non-profits. He has developed many educational modules, materials, and posters and has given over 100 workshops to teachers and students. He was curriculum advisor/technical reviewer for multiple Lawrence Hall of Science FOSS middle school modules and for the BSCS Science: An Inquiry Approach integrated high school curriculum. He developed partnerships between GA and UCSD that has led to financial support for undergraduate research in the Schools of Physical Sciences and Engineering, as well as mentoring and technical interactions.

He has been a member of 25 NSF education-related committees, ranging from elementary science education to national laboratory reviews. He has been involved in many APS education committees and activities, including the Forum on Education (as chair), Second and Fourth Graduate Education in Physics Conference, APS Excellence in Physics Education Award selection committee, and J-TUPP/Phys21 and BPUPP/EP3 task forces. He is currently a member of the APS Committee on Education (as chair), the EP3 Editorial Board, the US member of IUPAP Working Group 16 on Physics and Industry and a Member-At-Large of the NAS U.S. Liaison Committee for IUPAP.

Dr. Ali Arsanjani is Director of Cloud Partner Engineering at Google Cloud, building strategic partnerships through co-innovation with Google’s largest partners, ISVs and GSIs . He specializes in AI/ML and Data/Analytics to enable customers and partners to run on, integrate with and build upon the Google Cloud Platform for AI/ML and Data/Analytics use-cases that explore and extend the cutting edges of innovation. Pushing against the boundaries of market trends and anticipating what is on the horizon, He integrates current needs with future trends and defines tech strategy that integrates with product management to lead the direction of Google AI and Analytics.

Previously he was the Head of Machine Learning, WW Tech Leader, for AWS AI/ML Specialist Solution Architects . As Chief Principal AI/ML Architect he defined technical strategy for AI/ML Services, Leading the Technology Sector for SaaS, Software, ISVs and Internet-- AWS largest customer segment-- he created solutions that span multiple scenarios into reference architectures and patterns. Also Ali led a specialized research team of Applied Scientists, engineers and product managers for cutting edge prototyping in AI focusing on Neuro Machine interaction, NLP and Graph Neural Networks.

From 1998-2018, Ali was IBM CTO Analytics & Machine Learning & IBM Distinguished Engineer, 

Dr. Arsanjani is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science teaching Machine Learning in the Master’s Program for San Jose State Univ and previously taught at UC San Diego.

 

Scott Weldner is an engineering and business leader with a broad range of experience with a diverse set
of technologies and commercial, government and military market spaces. He is currently the Senior VP
of Engineering for HM Electronics, Inc. based in Carlsbad, California. HME is a diverse group of
companies that creates audio and wireless communications products for a variety of niche markets.
Prior to HME, Scott was the VP of Engineering at L3 Communications Linkabit division and president of
his own company based in Rochester, NY, which was acquired by The Titan Corporation in 2002. Over
the course of Scott’s career, he has consistently delivered innovative, high revenue generating products.
Scott holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University.

 

 

 

Dr. David Chow, is the Chief Scientific Officer at HRL Laboratories, LLC. He received
his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1989. He has
authored or co-authored more than 200 technical papers and holds more than 30 patents.
Dr. Chow served as the Director of the Microelectronics Laboratory at HRL from 2005 to
2017. During that time, the Microelectronics Laboratory developed state-of-the-art GaN
MMIC and power transistor technologies, heterogeneous integration technologies, mixed signal
integrated circuits, and millimeter-wave subsystems.

Bill Whitmarsh is Vice President of Engineering for the Hughes Technology Center in San Diego. This group has been responsible for development of satellite and terrestrial terminals for many years. Successes include technology development and equipment supply for the Thuraya mobile satellite system, for Inmarsat BGAN systems, for Lightsquared, Globalstar, Onstar and for XM radio. Hughes San Diego is currently deploying terminal technology and chipsets for the Mexsat and Globalstar satellite systems. Prior to joining HNS in 1996, Bill was a Technical Manager for Securicor in the UK where he had let the development of narrowband SMR radio equipment based on the MPT 1327 standard. This included both mobile and base station solutions using a highly linear amplifier technology which enabled much improved spectral efficiency. Bill was a founder member of LMT, which later span off to become Software Radio Technologies. During the late 1980s, Bill researched narrowband radio technologies and amplifier linearization at Bristol University in the UK. He earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in 1985 and 1986 respectively and his PhD in 1991. Bill holds four patents and has published a number of academic papers.

 

Dr. Arupjyoti (Arup) is the Technical Director of the Wireless Security Institute in the Idaho National Laboratory. The focus of his research is on secure implementation of future generations of wireless communications with scientific exploration and engineering innovations across the fields of wireless technology, cybersecurity, and computational science. Specific goals are to lead and focus wireless security research efforts for 5G and Beyond with national impact, to secure communications for a nationwide unmanned aerial system and for 5G spectrum sharing with distributed scheduling. Arup has extensive industry experience in wireless communications from his work before he joined INL in October, 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Sciences from Yale University. He is a senior member of IEEE.

Experienced Engineering leader with a demonstrated history of working in the internet industry. Strong information technology professional skilled in Platform Architecture, Mobile Applications, Mobile Platforms, Management, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Current focus on Scaling (team/culture/process).

 

 

Dr. Osama Haddadin is an L3Harris Senior Fellow and the Division Chief Technologist at Broadband Communication Systems (BCS) Sector in Salt Lake City. He has over 20 years of industry experience in digital signal processing for wireless communications, geophysical exploration, and medical imaging. His current interests include distributed autonomous systems, adaptive and array signal processing, and inverse problems. Osama’s current responsibilities at L3Harris include the promotion and development of advanced technologies and system architectures, technology roadmaps, IP management, and university engagement. 

Osama holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah, a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Utah. His Ph.D. research focused on signal and image reconstruction and inverse scattering problems.

Elizabeth Wheeler is a Deputy Division Leader in the Materials Engineering Division and the Deputy Director of the Center for Bioengineering at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of California at Davis and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Stanford University. She began her career at LLNL as a post-doc working on optics for use in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) prior to joining the Center for Micro and Nano Technology where she began working on inter-disciplinary research. She has been involved with and lead efforts in bioinstrumentation for biosecurity applications at LLNL for 20+ years. Her research interests focus on integrating biology and engineering to yield new platforms or flexible devices for Homeland Security or medical applications. She has worked on numerous multidisciplinary teams that have field tested technology developed at LLNL. Currently she also serves as the chair of the Lab-Wide Laboratory Directed Research & Development committee.

 

 

 

Sumit Tandon has a BE in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, India, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. He has been at MathWorks for over 14 years, and is a part of a global team that partners with academic and research institutions around the world with a focus on student and research success. In his current role, he leads a group of engineers and scientists that support higher-ed and research institutions in Western US & Canada, and Latin America.

Lance Onken is the CTO of Measurabl and a proud Triton alumni-athlete. Lance earned a BS in Computer Science and Engineering ('03) while also competing for the award winning NCAA Men's Water Polo team as their starting goalie. It was during these years he became friends with fellow teammate Matt Ellis who would later found Measurabl. Matt recruited Lance away from his role as a Principal Software Engineer at Websense and the rest is history. Lance continues to reside in San Diego with his wife and 2 young children. He still cheers on the Tritons and recently picked up disc golf.

BS in Computer Science from UNC-Chapel Hill 2002

Masters in Computer Science (Communications Networks) from UC-San Diego 2004

10 years at Amazon across various teams including Ordering, Fulfillment by Amazon, and Messaging Middleware for FireOS.

7 years at Facebook across Video and Voice Chat and Messaging Infrastructure.

Dr. Sandrine Miller-Montgomery, Pharm.D., Ph.D. is the President and CEO of Micronoma, a cancer diagnostics company, out of UC San Diego using the power of Microbiome in blood for solid tumor early detection. Prior to this, she was executive director of the UC San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation (CMI) that she co-led with Dr. Rob Knight. There, she established a world-class team focused on expanding industry and academic collaborations in the field of microbiome research. Before this 3-year detour in academia, she had focused her career in industry and had worked in large biotech and multinational companies as well as start-ups. She has assumed different responsibilities from R&D Director to Sales and Marketing position. She seems to excel at setting up companies for successful exits as shown by her work at Helixis, acquired by Illumina or MO BIO Labs acquired by QIAGEN.

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Justin earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara and his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from UCLA. He is also a California licensed Professional Engineer in Mechanical Engineering. Justin has been at NAVAIR for the last 11 years working within the Structures and Materials Departments. He is currently the NAVAIR, Fleet Readiness Center Southwest (FRCSW), Materials Engineering Department, Composites and Corrosion Division Lead. He is also the FRCSW site liaison to UCSD and the Office of Naval Research, Office of Research and Technology Applications, site manager.  

 

Ms. Carly Jackson serves the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) Enterprise in several roles. She is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO); National Competency Lead for Science and Technology; and Head of the Cyber and Science and Technology Department at the Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific in San Diego, California. She leads a highly technical team of more than 900 scientists, engineers, technical specialists, and administrative staff executing an annual budget of over $540M and influencing over $800M of research, development, test and evaluation in the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR), cyber, and space domains. Her team’s research efforts are principally focused in the areas of electromagnetic and antenna modeling, design and testing; cryogenics; energy and environmental sciences; information operations, electronic warfare, cyber engineering and integration and cybersecurity. Ms. Jackson joined the Federal service in March of 2009 as a systems engineer and lead for a variety of research and development projects focused on C4ISR integration of unmanned maritime systems at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SSC Pacific) Pacific. From 2010 to 2015, she served as head of Advanced Concepts branches within the Maritime Surveillance Division and then the Information Operations Division, both at SSC Pacific. In February 2015, she was selected for a rotational position at the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation in Washington, D.C. In August 2016, Ms. Jackson became the first Senior Scientific Technical Manager responsible for rapid prototyping of information warfare capabilities across the Naval Research and Development Establishment. Ms. Jackson was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in July 2019. Ms. Jackson holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School. She was awarded the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 2017 and numerous team awards including the Navy Agility and Accountability Award in 2019, a Navy Command Innovation Excellence Award in 2017, and SSC Pacific and NAVSEA Team Achievement Awards in 2013. She is DAWIA STM Level III, SPRDE-SE Level III, and Program Management Level II certified.

Srinivas Subramanian is an experienced vice president of Nordson Corporation, a leading global technology company, with a demonstrated history of working in the electrical and electronic manufacturing industry. He demonstrates strong sales professional and is skilled in Research and Development (R&D), Process Optimization, Process Engineering, Strategic Planning, and Business Development.

Larry Stullich is the San Diego Director of Systems Engineering for Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. In this role, he is responsible for ensuring successful program execution by providing the engineering oversight, talent development, career management, process control, design vision and engineering tools required to be best-in-class now and in the future. Larry received his BSEE and MSEE from the University of California San Diego and an MBA from George Mason University. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi. He is a Veteran of the US Navy, having served as a Reactor Operator on a Fast Attack Nuclear Powered Submarine.

After studying mechanical engineering, art and mathematics at UCSD, Dan spent 20 years as a design engineer before founding NOVO Engineering, which he has managed for the last 17 years. He is an inventor on 65 US patents in such fields as medical device, life science, industrial equipment, security systems, outdoor displays, action sports and eyeglasses. Early career experience at Hewlett Packard opened his eyes to how talented engineers, enlightened management practices and a well-equipped R&D facility combine to create an innovation and problem-solving powerhouse. Dan has endeavored to recreate that same atmosphere of performance and comradery at NOVO. Dan now focuses on mentoring younger design engineers and managers and ensuring that NOVO remains true to the principles of engineering excellence and customer service. 

Kenny C. Gross is an AI Solutions Architect and researcher with the System Dynamics Characterization and Control Laboratory at Oracle's San Diego Physical Sciences Research Center. Kenny is a habitual inventor and drives pioneering innovations in the areas of proactive fault monitoring through applications of advanced pattern recognition and continuous system telemetry for improving the Reliability, Availability, Serviceability (RAS) of complex engineering systems including enterprise computing servers and Internet-of-Things applications. Several recent spinoff patents leverage advanced pattern recognition for significant boosts in operational energy efficiency and prognostic cyber security for servers and data centers.

Rey Halili is the leader of R&D Advanced Development for Coronary Vascular devices at Philips in the Image Guided Therapy business unit.  He has held progressive leadership roles across a breadth of medical device technologies related to intravascular ultrasound, cardiac cryoablation, cardiac resuscitation, artificial heart valves, drug delivery devices, and infusion disposables.  Rey holds a BS and MEng in Bioengineering from UC San Diego and an MBA from SDSU.

Damon Valenzona is the Chief Technology Officer at PickTrace and he graduated from UCSB with a Masters in Computer Science.  PickTrace creates harvest and workforce management software for the Agriculture market.  It is a remote Series B startup that came out of Y Combinator in 2015.  Engineers at PickTrace are customer oriented and love creating game changing software for growers. 

An Mei Chen is Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm, Inc., where she leads advanced technology and ecosystem development and strategy.  Joined Qualcomm in 2001, An Chen holds 450 plus worldwide patents and over 20 peer-reviewed papers including several book chapters and has led cross-functional teams in innovation, design, and productization of wireless communication systems.  Ms. Chen also oversees Qualcomm Technology Licensing’s university collaboration in technology areas of advanced wireless, semiconductor, multimedia, and machine learning.  An Chen received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical & computer engineering from the University of California, San Diego.

Over 17 years of US and international experience in systems engineering and project management of large scale integration projects on US Navy contracts with Raytheon Technologies.

Dr. James Klausner is a co-founder of the long duration energy storage company, RedoxBlox and
currently holds the role as Executive Chairman. He also holds the position of MSU Foundation Professor
at Michigan State University. He is formerly Dean of Engineering at UAE University (2021-2022), formerly
the Director of the Fraunhofer USA Midwest Research Center (2022), and is formerly a Department Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University (2016-2021). He formerly served as Chair of the ASME Heat Transfer Division (2011-2012). He serves on the board of directors for the American Society of Thermal Fluid Engineers and the International Titanium Association Foundation. For three and a half years he served as a Program Director at the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Prior to that he held the Newton C. Ebaugh Professorship in
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida (1989-2015). He received his Ph.D. degree in 1989 from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has made substantial fundamental contributions to understanding the dynamics of boiling heat transfer systems. He has made many fundamental and applied research contributions in high temperature thermochemistry, waste heat and solar driven desalination, and high heat flux phase-change heat transfer. Dr. Klausner has authored more than 175 refereed publications and is the author of more than ten patents and four provisional patents. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society of Thermal Fluid Engineers. He is a recipient of the ASME Heat Transfer Division Memorial Award and the 75th Anniversary Award.

Fern started his career as a Credit Analyst at Arab Bank PLC. He went on to be the founder and CEO of Miramar Capital in Singapore, an investment holding company. Today, together with his wife, he owns and manages Rescue Critters, a business that manufactures animal training solutions for the veterinary science industry. Rescue Critters® was established in 1998. The inspiration to develop alternatives came from the realization that live animals were being practiced on to teach pet first aid. Subsequently, it led to the development of animal training mannikins catered to the veterinary profession.
From its simple beginning, Rescue Critters® expanded its range of products to address the needs of the military and Search & Rescue groups. Today, the company also develops products for middle and high school students. Keeping our sight focused on the welfare of animals, we hope to continue to work closely with different organizations in developing clever solutions to complement their teaching and training programs

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Arvind Sujeeth is VP of Engineering, Compilers at SambaNova Systems. Arvind leads the compiler organization and is responsible for shaping the company’s software vision. Before joining SambaNova Systems, Arvind was the co-founder and chief technology officer of fintech startup mines.io, which used machine learning to increase financial access in emerging markets. Prior to that, he was a research assistant at Stanford University where he developed compilers for parallel and heterogeneous computing platforms. Arvind holds a PhD and MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a BS in computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Currently leading an organization comprised of 3 teams with 24 people. Responsible for key
parts of Amazons PrimeNow and Fresh businesses. I direct the product roadmap, software
development, and operational excellence for these teams. We own systems that handle 250k+
TPS in sub-millisecond latency with 99% uptime and 24/7 engineering support.

Magaly Drant runs the Office of the CTO and the Engineering Operations Department at ServiceNow, reporting into the CTO and EVP of DevOps. ServiceNow provides enterprise cloud computing solutions that define, manage, and automate services for enterprises worldwide. Magaly focuses on scaling the technology organization to support the growth: from angles as varied as executive relationship with our largest customers, talent acquisition and development strategy, engineering processes development and automation, implementation standards definition and adoption, and technical architecture. In previous roles, she has contributed to and ran software engineering teams (platform and applications development) across a variety of technical stacks. Born and raised in France, Magaly graduated with a master's degree in General Engineering from Ecole Centrale de Paris.

Dr. Singh is currently working as Director of Business Management at Solar Turbines, A Caterpillar company. He is responsible for the new project execution and oversees a global team. He joined Solar Turbines as Field Engineer in Dubai, following which he has held various positions of increasing responsibility globally. Recently he was deputed in Singapore where he was responsible for Solar’s customer services Business in Asia Pacific. Upon his return to San Diego, he was appointed Director of Engineering Operations.

Dr. Singh received his PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), a BS Degree in Instrumentation & Control from Pune University, MBA in Information Systems from South Gujarat University. He has also participated in the Executive Leadership Program at Thunderbird School of Management and received a degree in Brand Management from Disney Institute. His research interest is in the field of Hybrid Power Systems leveraging multiple distributed energy sources like solar, wind, gas turbines, battery storage, etc. He has published articles in engineering journals and presented his work in numerous technical conferences.  He has also participated in numerous funded grants.

Dr. Singh is very passionate about the engagement between academia and industry, he is on the board of the Corporate Affiliate Program at UCSD, a Member of the Executive Advisory Board of the University of San Diego (USD), advises on various engineering and management programs including mentorship for incubators and accelerators globally. He is an active member of ASEAN business council. He lives in San Diego with his family. Coaching, meditation, golfing, and listening to classical music are a few of his hobbies.

Jason is the VP of engineering for Sony Home Entertainment & Sound and a 25-year veteran of the company.  His background is in Big Data having developed data modeling and trading software at JP Morgan and large distributed systems for IBM and FPL.  At Sony, his focus is on home entertainment products and global retail experiences.

 

As President and Founding Partner of Southern California Design Company, Travis leads a talented team of designers, engineers, and marketers to develop new products, as well as create and grow brands for clients in California, and around the world.  SC Design Co. has also launched several product companies of its own, including Indi Golf Equipment, Railias Sports Systems, ReCrate Beverage Solutions, Hiline Cycling Components, and a few more that are nearly ready for introduction to the world.  Travis is a supporter of the Jacobs School and Triton Athletics scholarship programs, a fan of all Triton teams, and is training to lower his personal best time at the next Triton 5K.

James Williams is currently the Senior Director of Technology Research and Innovation for Teradata. He is responsible for identifying key leading-edge academic research and innovations; for driving the ideation and innovation framework; and for technology evaluation for invention disclosures, alliances, and emerging technology trends. Prior to Teradata, James served as SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) Chief Information Officer and Director of the Computing Division for 5 years , as well as principle advisor to the Laboratory Director for Computing Operations and Scientific Computing Services. In addition, James worked at the NASA Ames Research Center for 14 years with his last role being CIO and was responsible for delivering the Nebula Cloud Computing platform that eventually became foundational to the OpenStack community. James also worked on the Columbia accident while he worked at NASA.

Manoj with overall 27+ years of IT experience has been in Thermo Fisher Scientific for close to 24 years. During this time he has successfully managed almost all departments within IT ranging from R&D Software, Data Center management to Customer Relationship management taking on increasing responsibilities. Currently he is a Vice President IT COO and manages the IT Operations within Information Technologies. In this role, Manoj is responsible for architecture, roadmaps, strategy and delivering, enhancing, integrating, maintaining global business applications and infrastructure. Before Joining Thermo Fisher Scientific, Manoj worked for Sybase Corporation as a technical lead supporting key Sybase Wall Street customers. Manoj holds a masters in computer applications from University of Kerala, India (Gold medalist) and a bachelors degree in computer science from Delhi University.

Jon is the Founder and CEO of Thrive Technologies, a bleeding-edge VR software start-up that is redefining how developers build and share their ideas and creations. Jon created Thrive with a vision of a flexible online framework that eliminates the hurdles faced in VR development today. With a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of California, San Diego, and years of experience in VR and tech industries, Jon brings a wealth of technical skills and leadership experience to his role at Thrive. Jon believes that Thrive will play a major role in maturing VR technology and shaping the virtual landscape of the future.

 

 

 

Nik Devereaux is an Engineering Director for Viasat’s Global Networks and Technology business area, ensuring Viasat maintains excellence in engineering and remains an excellent place for engineers to work and thrive.  He received his Bachelors (2001) and Master's (2011) degrees from UCSD and remains very involved as an alum and ambassador for Viasat in the Jacobs School of Engineering and Halicioglu Data Science Institute.

 

Dr. Carl Kirkconnell is the Founder and President of West Coast Solutions, an R&D, engineering services, and prototyping company located in Huntington Beach, CA, primarily focused on aerospace, defense, and medical applications.  The Core Technologies at WCS are Cryogenics, Space Electronics, and Expeditionary Power.  Carl founded West Coast Solutions in 2015, and his team is made up of many of the same people he collaborated with during his 25 years of prior experience at Iris Technology, where he was the Chief Technology Officer, and Raytheon, where he departed in 2009 as a Senior Fellow.  Carl earned his undergraduate and advanced degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where as a graduate student he founded the GT Cryogenics Laboratory (GTCL), where he remains active as a collaborating researcher to this day.

Dr. Xiaodong Che is the Chief Technology Officer of the HDD Business Unit and senior vice president at Western Digital Corporation. His responsibility is to shape the magnetic recording vision based on long-term data growth and to serve in the Corporate Global Strategy and Technology team preparing for the disruptive innovation transitions in the foreseeable future.

In 2008, Dr. Che joined HGST. During Western Digital’s HGST acquisition, he led the technology strategy and roadmap consolidation. Prior to that, Dr. Che served Quantum Corporation as a recording technologist.

Dr. Che received his BA in Physics from Fudan University in Shanghai China in 1987, and his Ph.D. at UC San Diego in condensed matter physics under Prof. Harry Suhl in 1991. Afterward, he joined Prof. Neal Bertram’s magnetic recording group at the Center for Magnetic Recording Research as a post-doctor.  He has been actively involved in the development and innovation of magnetic recording storage technology in the last three decades. 

James is one of the inventors of the touchscreen. He has founded several companies, including Truphone, the world’s first global mobile network, where he made the first VoIP call on a cell phone and developed the eSIM. James has launched mobile virtual network operations in the UK, USA, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Hong Kong, Australia, Germany and built a travel SIM that roams in over 200 countries. He holds numerous patents, filed in over a hundred countries. He studied Physics and Computer Science at Manchester University and Engineering at Lancaster and Cambridge University (ACPMM).

His first book, Are the Androids Dreaming Yet?, explores the limits of Artificial Intelligence and the differences between human brains and computers. His research interest is building quantum computers based on the Diósi-Penrose interpretation.

He currently works for World Mobile building networks to connect the unconnected in sub-Saharan Africa, the United States and throughout the world. These networks use a mixture of aerostats – helium balloons – and advanced, maybe even quantum, antennas.

 

Jeff Carmichael’s engineering leadership spans over 20 years and encompasses networking, security and OLTP systems. Prior to joining XIFIN, Jeff led worldwide software development for the network and security division of LSI Corp. He has held senior level leadership positions at several successful startups, and divisional leadership positions at Intel, and at Perot Systems where he architected transaction processing systems for hotel and car rental reservations. Jeff holds a B.A. in Mathematics from San Jose State University.