Get to know your 2009 Tapia Conference Committee members! Either meet with them during the Tapia Celebration, or follow up with them via email (email addresses are provided below) after our 2009 event.
Monica Anderson
University of Alabama
Robotics Competition Co-Chair, Technical Papers Committee Member uanderson@cs.ua.edu
Monica Anderson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Alabama, and a faculty member in the university’s Distributed Autonomy Lab, which makes use of software engineering, behavioral science, and networking to focus on using teams of robots to accomplish high-level tasks. In the lab, appropriate shared representations and communications paradigms are tested in simulation and in a lab environment. Currently, the lab contains two different robot platforms: K-TEAM KOALA and the iRobot iCreate. These robots are interfaced with single board computers running Linux. Player, an open source device interface, provides robot services. Anderson has a B.S. in Computer Science from Chicago State University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Andras Balogh
University of Texas – Pan American
Scholarships Committee abalogh@utpa.edu
Andras Balogh received the B.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Szeged, Hungary, the M.S. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Texas at Dallas, and the Ph.D. degree in mathematics from Texas Tech University in 1989, 1994, and 1997, respectively. From 1997 to 1998, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Mathematics Department at Idaho State University, Pocatello. Currently he is Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas - Pan American, Edinburg (UTPA). Prior to moving to UTPA he was an Assistant Project Scientist in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego from 1998 to 2002. His research interests include control of distributed parameter systems and computational mathematics. Balogh is serving as a Subject Editor for the International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control and he is a member of the Conference Editorial Board of the IEEE Control Systems Society.
Valerie Barr
Union College
Workshops Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member barrv@union.edu
Valerie Barr is a professor and chair of the Computer Science Department at Union College. Before coming to Union, she was on the faculty at Hofstra University. During her graduate studies she also taught at Pratt Institute, Rutgers University, Mount Holyoke College, and Polytechnic University. Valerie received her Masters degree from New York University and her Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Her research interests are primarily in software testing, particularly applied to various kinds of artificial intelligence and language processing systems, computer science education, particularly new curricula that will engage an increasingly diverse group of students in CS In winter 2008, taught Creative Computing and a Scholars Research Seminar entitled "Brilliant Mind, Embattled Soul". She has also lately become very interested in issues of identity and technology, and what the Net Generation is really all about. She is currently teaching a course on this.
Tony Baylis
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Registration Chair baylis3@llnl.gov
Tony Baylis is an Assistant Department Manager for the Computing Applications and Research (CAR) Department in the Computation Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). His responsibilities as the Assistant Department Manager include management and coordination of workforce efforts that meet the programmatic needs of the department’s customer base. Before he began his career at LLNL, he had an 18-year career at the University of Illinois, and 15 years at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Tony has been a volunteer for various organizations, including ACM/IEEE Supercomputing conferences, ACM SIGGRAPH, and the Richard Tapia Diversity in Computing Conference. He recently served as the Broader Engagement (BE) Program chair for the SC08 conference in Austin, Texas. The Broader Engagement Program strives to identify and involve individuals from underrepresented communities who have an interest in high performance computing.
Nina Berry
Sandia National Laboratories
Conference Chair nmberry@sandia.gov
Nina Berry received a B.S. in Computer Science at Mary Washington College. She went on to receive a M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State. Berry is currently a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. She researches software entities known as intelligent agents. In recognition of her outstanding accomplishments, Berry has received a Women of Color Technology Award in Government and Defense for Educational Leadership in Government. Finally, she is the chair of the Coalition to Diversify Computing.
M. Brian Blake is the Department Chair and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science at Georgetown University. Dr. Blake conducts applied research in the development of intelligent agent approaches for the sharing of information and capabilities across organizational boundaries. His investigations cover the spectrum of software engineering: design, specification, and proof of correctness, implementation, experimentation, performance evaluation, and application. He has published over 85 journal articles and refereed conference papers in the areas of intelligent agents and workflow, service-oriented computing, component-based software engineering, distributed data management, and software engineering education. He is the recipient of several best paper awards and was selected the Most Promising Engineer by the Career Communications Group in 2003. He received his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and has a PhD of Information and Software Engineering from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Blake loves running, playing basketball, and spending time with his wife and son.
Joel W. Branch got his B.S. in Systems and Computer Science from Howard University, and his M.S. and Ph.D.’s in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He works for IBM Research where his current research interests lie in developing techniques for semi-automated discovery and modeling of business transaction processes from heterogeneous data sources in a semantically and structurally agnostic manner. His interests in wireless sensor networks entail distributed microeconomic approaches to network and sensor information management as well as discovering novel approaches to both information overload and quality of information management. Branch's primary hobbies include photography, art, gourmet cooking and traveling – all pursued with his lovely wife. For added recreation, he also enjoys video games, exercise, and various competitive sports.
Carlton Bruett’s designs have influenced numerous organizations and events, including National Science Foundation-supported supercomputing programs, international conferences, and private clients. A long-standing member of the computing community, Bruett has made significant contributions to programs that help broaden the participation of minorities in computing. He has been the designer for all of the Richard Tapia Celebration in Computing Conferences, including those hosted in Houston, Texas (2001); Atlanta, Georgia (2003); Albuquerque, New Mexico (2005); Orlando, Florida (2007), and now Portland, Oregon (2009).
Jamika D. Burge, PhD is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University (University Park). She is also affiliated with Penn State's Center for Human-Computer Interaction. Burge completed her PhD in Computer Science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Blacksburg, VA). Her research interests include human-computer-interaction, computer-mediated communication, and social computing. She holds an MS in Computer Science from North Carolina A&T State University (Greensboro, NC), and she earned her BS in Computer Science from Fisk University (Nashville, TN). She has received several awards, including IBM PhD Research Fellow, and she has served in several leadership positions, including president of the Computer Science Graduate Student Council while at Virginia Tech. Burge is affiliated with several professional organizations, including the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the CSE (Computer Science Education) and CHI (Computer-Human Interaction) Special Interest Groups. She is a research mentor to undergraduate and graduate students. She also enjoys meeting dynamic people and traveling nationally and internationally.
Theresa Chatman
Rice University
Scholarships Committee tlc@rice.edu
Theresa Chatman manages numerous activities at Rice University focused on the recruitment, mentoring, and retention of minority students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). She has also been instrumental in many national partnerships and events designed to support minority students. Her work has enabled and inspired hundreds of students to focus on their academic programs and achieve their personal and professional goals. Through outreach programs that Theresa has helped orchestrate for several organizations and activities, such as the Rice-Houston Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, the Center for Research on Parallel Computation, and others, Rice University has been recognized as having an outstanding percentage of minority Ph.D. graduates in STEM. After graduating from Rice, these students have gone on to make their own mark in their respective fields at universities, national laboratories, and in industry. Theresa has served on several national committees to further the accomplishments of minorities in STEM disciplines, including the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing and the Houston Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation.
Felicia Doswell
Norfolk State University
Panels Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member fdoswell@nsu.edu
Felicia Doswell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Norfolk State University. Her research interests are in the areas of information assurance, networking, and human computer interaction. She is currently investigating location-aware computing techniques and solutions for mobile devices and development of support applications to enhance human interaction in educational settings. Through her work in interface design, usability, and computer security, she strives to engage all users in trustworthy computing practices including the elderly, visually impaired, and physically challenged. She has interest in addressing the challenges of increasing access to computer technology among underrepresented groups and is devoted to raising community awareness of and participation in computing to groups such as K-12 youth. She is also an active participant in graduate and undergraduate research initiatives to ensure that students have a comprehensive educational experience.
L. A. (Tony) Drummond
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Doctoral Consortium Co-Chair ladrummond@lbl.gov
Drummond is a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is working on scientific applications that could potentially benefit from the use of the ACTS Collection, supporting the tools installed in the NERSC HPC computers, promoting interoperability of the tools, and marketing them to researchers at DOE labs and universities. He is also a member of the scientific team working on the Greenflash project. His work in Greenflash focuses on performance profiling and modeling, and optimization of atmospheric codes. Tony spent five years as a postdoc and research assistant at the UCLA Department of Atmospheric Science, optimizing numerical models of the atmosphere. He received his M.S. in Computer Sciences from the University of Tulsa and his Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the National Polytechnical Institute of Toulouse, France. His graduate work was in parallel iterative solver solutions to large linear systems of equations.
Jeffrey Forbes
Duke University
Robotics Competition Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member forbes@cs.duke.edu
Jeffrey Forbes is an assistant professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. His research interests include computer science education, intelligent control and robotics, reinforcement learning, and social networks. He received a B. S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Prof. Forbes holds memberships in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and the Coalition to Diversify Computing.
Juan Gilbert
Auburn University
Panels Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member gilbert@auburn.edu
Juan E. Gilbert is the T-SYS Distinguished Professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department and a Fellow in the Center for Governmental Services at Auburn University where he directs the Human-Centered Computing (HCC) Lab. He is also a National Associate of the National Research Council of the National Academies, an ACM Distinguished Speaker and a Senior Member of the IEEE Computer Society. In August 2009, Gilbert will Chair the Human Centered Computing Division in the School of Computing at Clemson University.
Roscoe Giles
Boston University
Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award Chair roscoe@bu.edu
Roscoe Giles is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University (BU); the Deputy Director of the Center for Computational Science, Boston University; past Chair of the BU Faculty Council; past chair of the SC2002 Supercomputing Conference; and a Co-PI of the Empowering Leadership Alliance. For his work in increasing the participation of minorities in computer and computational science, in 2000 Giles received the A. Nico Habermann award from the Computing Research Association. Giles' research focuses on the application of high performance and parallel computing to physics and materials problems. As an outgrowth of these computational science research efforts, he has become committed to prototyping and building computational and educational infrastructure that will enable broad participation of scholars and students in high-performance computing. Professor Giles received his PhD in Physics from Stanford University in 1975 and Bachelor of Arts in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1970.
Juan José Hernández
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Scholarships Committee
Juan Hernández is a Computer Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the premier science laboratories that are part of the Department of Energy. Mr. Hernández is involved in the area of Software Quality and works with a team of researchers and physicists in modeling natural phenomena using high performance computers. Juan is a Certified Software Quality Assurance Engineer by the American Society of Quality (ASQ). He earned his B.S. in Applied Mathematics (1989) from the University of California at Santa Barbara and his Masters in Business Administration (MBA, 1994) from National University in San Diego, California. Juan has been at LLNL since September 2001. He is actively involved in fundraising events to provide scholarships to Hispanic students from the local communities.
James Hill is a Research Scientist at the Institute of Software Integrated Systems (ISIS), Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University in March 2009, his M.S. in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University in May 2006, and his B.S. in Computer Science from Morehouse College in May 2004. Previously, James was a visiting Research Scientist at several industrial partners, such as eBay, Raytheon, and NASA JPL. James's research focuses on algorithms, analytics, patterns, and techniques to facilitate quality-of-service evaluation continuously throughout the software lifecycle. Currently, he is focusing on agile development techniques for developing and evaluating component-based distributed systems. James's research has lead to the development of an open source research tool named CUTS, which is used by several industrial partners, such as such as Australian DoD, BBN Technologies, Boeing, General Electric Research, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin.
Debbi Howard is an adjunct faculty member of computer information systems and technology at Kaplan University. She received her MBA from Texas A&M University-Commerce and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Information Assurance and Security at the University of Fairfax. Her research interests include cyber ethics and law, information assurance and security education and curriculum development, and adoption of enterprise privacy protection tools by businesses to protect employee Internet browsing. She teaches courses in networking, ethics, critical thinking and information security. Debbi is also interested in promoting diversity and equal access in computing and online.
Charles L. Isbell, Jr. received his BS degree in computer science in 1990 from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was named the outstanding student by the President. Awarded a fellowship from AT&T Bell Labs as well as an NSF fellowship, he continued his education at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. After earning his PhD from MIT in 1998, Charles joined AT&T Labs/Research. In 2002, he returned to Georgia Tech to join the faculty of the College of Computing. His research group is The Laboratory for Interactive Artificial Intelligence. The unifying theme of his work in recent years has been using statistical machine learning to enable autonomous agents to engage in life-long learning when in the presence of thousands of other intelligent agents, including humans. Since graduating from MIT, he has won two best paper awards and has been featured in several magazines and collections for technical contributions in working with agents who interact in social communities. Since returning to Georgia Tech, Charles has also pursued reform in computer science education. He has been awarded numerous teaching awards, and has been granted the Dean’s Award for singular contribution to the College for his work on Threads, Georgia Tech’s new structuring principle for computing curricula. This work has received international attention, and been presented in the academic and popular press. Recently, he has become the Interim Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Undergraduate Education for the College of Computing.
Chuck Koelbel
Rice University
Posters Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member chk@rice.edu
Charles Koelbel is a Research Scientist at Rice University, where he works on various projects involving Grid computing, parallel languages, and supercomputing. Most of his current work is devoted to the Virtual Grid Applications Development Software (VGrADS) project, featured in a Tapia 2005 panel. He is perhaps better known, however for his work defining High Performance Fortran in the early 1990s. He has been at Rice since 1990, except for 1998-2001 when he was a Program Director at NSF, with responsibilities for the Advanced Computational Research and Information Technology Research programs. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University in 1990.
Cynthia Lanius is a Co-Program Manager in the Empowering Leadership: Computing Scholars of Tomorrow Alliance (http://empoweringleaderhip.org), an NSF Broadening Participation in Computing Alliance headquartered at Rice University. For many years Cynthia was a high school mathematics teacher. In 1992, she was appointed as a Master Teacher by the Rice University School Mathematics Project where she trained other mathematics teachers. In connection with this, she met Richard Tapia and began to work with him in his outreach programs. In 1998, she left teaching and joined Tapia at Rice full time where they started the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education. From 1998-2003, Cynthia helped to develop and maintain Rice’s NSF AGEP program, the GirlTECH and TeacherTECH programs, and numerous other programs designed to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities and women in science and engineering. In 2003 because her family relocated, Cynthia left Rice. She went to the Math Forum at Drexel University where she supported several online mathematics programs, telecommuting fulltime for the first time. Cynthia now is an independent consultant, where from her home in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, she works for several clients managing educational projects, with the most significant one being the Empowering Leadership Alliance.
Phoebe Lenear has more than 18 years of experience in the workplace as a program manager, systems developer, and a coordinator of testing, training, and integration projects. Her positions in academia and the research sector have required extensive communication, collaboration and technical skills. She has consulted with military personnel to integrate voice technology into their work environments, helped software vendors define their user requirements and meet contract specifications, and conducted and facilitated training for military personnel and university faculty and staff. Lenear holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in general engineering (mathematics and human-computer interaction), and a Ph.D. in human resource education (technology education) from UIUC. She currently serves as the coordinator of instructor services at the University of Illinois Global Campus. Her research interests are E-mentoring, Online Learning and Social Networking; and her hobbies include singing, skating, bowling, and spending time with her family. You may even hear an encore performance of Wind Beneath My Wings at the Gala and Awards Banquet. :-)
Mary Ann Leung
Krell Institute
Doctoral Consortium Panelist leung@krellinst.org
Mary Ann Leung currently works for the Krell Institute where she serves as the Program Manager for the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship program. She supports top scientists across the nation as they pursue their Ph.D. degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines that also involve computational science research. Prior to joining Krell, Leung was the Project Director for the Tools for Success program at Miami Dade College (MDC). Before that, she started and ran diversity in science program at the University of Washington (UW) that included collaborations with the NSF funded ADVANCE program. She was an invited delegate at the National Conference on Graduate Student Leadership, was an invited steering committee member for the Preparing Chemical Leaders of Tomorrow program, and an invited speaker for the President's Advisory Council on Women. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from the Chemistry department at the University of Washington and her bachelor's degree at Mills College with a major in chemistry and a minor in mathematics.
Brandeis Marshall
Purdue University
Posters Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member brandeis@purdue.edu
Brandeis Marshall is an Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Technology in the Data Management area. Her research lies in the area of information and image retrieval, knowledge management and data mining. Her work centers on bettering the solution to the search accuracy problem in Web and image/video application domains. Her ongoing research involves the development of new data mining techniques and theories for applications in various problem domains such as web and image search.
Luis Melara
Shippensburg University
Scholarships Co-Chair lamelara@ship.edu
Luis Melara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include numerical solutions to partial differential equations, continuous optimization and applications of mathematics. Melara earned his B.S in Applied Mathematics from UCLA (1996), his M.A. (2001) and Ph.D. (2003) from Rice University in Computational and Applied Mathematics. Prior to arriving at Shippensburg University, she was at NIST, Colorado College and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Melara enjoys mentoring undergraduate students and working with them on undergraduate research projects. He is a 2002-2004 National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellow. In his free time, he enjoys listening to music, reading books and whenever possible, traveling.
Ronald Metoyer
Oregon State University
Technical Program Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member metoyer@eecs.oregonstate.edu
Ronald Metoyer is currently an associate professor in the Computer Science department at Oregon State University. He received his Ph.D. from the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2001 where he was a member of the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center. His research goal is to develop techniques that allow novice users to create compelling interactive character content for training, education, games, and visualization. As a test bed for research in character motion generation and character interaction methods, Metoyer is building an immersive training environment for quarterbacks in the game of American football. Current research projects include methods for real-time motion captures data resequencing, tangible interfaces for character manipulation, and pose-distance metrics for comparing motion poses.
Jose Andre Morales
University of Texas - San Antonio
Scholarships Committee Member
Jose Andre Morales is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the Institute of Cyber Security in the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research involves prevention, detection, recovery and removal of malware, wireless security and host behavior based security solutions. He is co-founder of the Hispanic PhD Mailing List and is a member of Sigma Xi, ACM and IEEE. In his past time he enjoys great food, wine and cigars.
Linda Morales
University of Texas, Dallas
Technical Papers Co-Chair lmorales@utdallas.edu
Linda Morales is a Research Assistant Professor with the Computer Science Department at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research interests include the design and analysis of algorithms, security for networks and multicast groups, information security education, and ethics in computing and information security. She has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Dallas. She teaches courses in algorithms and information security and is very interested in promoting diversity in computing. lmorales@utdallas.edu
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and a member of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech. His research interests include human-computer interaction, personal information management, multiplatform user interfaces, user interface software, and educational uses of computers. He received a DSc in computer science from The George Washington University, and a B.A. and M.S. in computer science from Ball State University. He is a member of the ACM, and IEEE-CS. Professionally, he serves as a member of the Coalition to Diversify Computing and as member of the editorial board for ACM JERIC. He is co-director of the Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates in Computer Science and Engineering (CREU); and is Director of the Personal Information Management (PIM) Research lab, which studies how individuals use technology to organize and use their information to satisfy their day to day needs. His research group has also explored the issue of culture and multi-language interfaces for communities that live within a different culture. He is also a member of the Digital Government Research group. His hobbies include baseball, volleyball, salsa music, computing, and technology.
Ann Redelfs
Empowering Leadership Alliance
Public Relations Chair ann@redelfs.us
Ann Redelfs' career has included positions at the Cornell Theory Center, Center for Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC), and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), where she directed external relations and education/outreach programs focused on increasing the participation of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. At SDSC, Redelfs served as a member of the Leadership Team for the Education, Outreach, and Training Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (EOT-PACI), which had more than 30 partners nationwide. Also at SDSC, she was the original Diversity Officer, developing an organization-wide diversity plan. She served on the Leadership Team of the Engaging People in Cyberinfrastructure (EPIC) program, which continued the momentum of EOT-PACI, engaging a wider community. She is a program manager for the Empowering Leadership: Computing Scholars of Tomorrow Alliance (EL Alliance, http://www.empoweringleadership.org), an NSF-supported Broadening Participation in Computing program. The EL Alliance is focused on providing tailored opportunities for minority students in computing to help ensure their success. Redelfs has been active with the Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women (CRA-W), the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and the Coalition to Diversify Computing. She has served on the steering committees of numerous conferences, including the Grace Hopper and Richard Tapia Celebration conferences, the SC conference series, and GridToday conferences.
Cheryl Seals
Auburn University
Workshops Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member sealscd@auburn.edu
Cheryl Seals is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at Auburn University. She conducts research in Human Computer Interaction with an emphasis in visual programming techniques for education, user interface design & evaluation, and educational gaming technologies. Seals performs broaden participation in computing research at all levels and works with innovative programs focused on increasing the computing pipeline by getting students interested in STEM disciplines and technology careers. Dr. Seals is the Auburn Academic Liaison of the NSF BPC sponsored STARS(Students & Technology in Academia, Research & Service) Alliance with the mission to increase participation of women, under-represented minorities, and persons with disabilities in computing disciplines through multifaceted interventions. Auburn's local area has been supported with computer clubs for K-12 students. Over the last three years, AU CSSE STARS have provided computer experiences to Auburn City Schools with over 300 K-12 students and teachers.
Michael Sirois grew up wanting to be an actor – or a writer – or maybe a drummer. He did pursue those during high school and college, and then added a three-year stint as a disc jockey to the mix. In the late 1970’s, armed with degrees in Drama and English, he still wanted all of those careers, but couldn’t decide how to go about it. He did it by teaching middle school for twenty-three years in the Houston ISD, teaching English, reading, journalism, drama and – eventually – technology. He began teaching summer workshops at Rice for Richard Tapia’s TeacherTECH program, and in 2002, became a program manager for his Center for Excellence and Equity in Education. He has since served on committees for Grace Hopper, Tapia, Supercomputing and others, and has evolved into a geek who wrangles websites (Tapia, Coalition to Diversify Computing, Empowering Leadership Alliance, and others), manages educational outreach programs, travels, records audiobooks, still writes (his novel might be finished before the century ends), and loves photography. If you see him at the conference with a camera, ask him to take your picture. You could end up in the conference photo album. (8^)
Juan Vargas
Google
Doctoral Consortium Panelist
Juan Vargas joined Google's University Relations in October 2007. He was a Sr. Academic Relations Manager for Microsoft from May 2004 to September 2007. He is a professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of South Carolina, where he was full-time from 1988 to 2004, teaching data mining, Bayesian networks, embedded and distributed systems, data structures & algorithms, programming languages, and operating systems. Dr. Vargas research interests include data mining, embedded systems, sensor networks, distributed systems and biomedical engineering. His research is published in more than 60 articles, several book chapters, and many conferences. Dr. Vargas received his BSEE from the University of Texas at El Paso, his MS from CINVESTAV-IPN, and his PhD from Vanderbilt University.
Cristina Villalobos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas-Pan American. Her research interests include linear and nonlinear optimization, applications of optimization, and mathematics education. Dr. Villalobos earned her B.S. in Mathematics (1994) from the University of Texas-Austin and her M.S. and Ph.D. (2000) from Rice University in Computational and Applied Mathematics. Prior to arriving at UTPA, she was at St. Mary’s University and the University of Texas-El Paso. Dr. Villalobos is actively involved in mentoring undergraduate students from underrepresented groups onto graduate school. She is a 1994 Ford Foundation Predoctoral fellow. Dr. Villalobos tries to get a balance between work and family life. Her spouse is a mechanical engineering professor at UTPA. They share the responsibilities of raising 2 children, ages 4 and 6. Between juggling work, family, and soccer games (and now karate!), she enjoys spending time with her family, cooking new recipes, and gardening.
Pamela Williams
Logistics Management Institute
Coalition to Diversify Computing Chair pj_williams@ukalumni.net
Pamela J. Williams is a Research Fellow in the Supply Management Group at LMI, a government consulting company. Her research interests include large-scale optimization, mathematical software design, and data analysis. Williams earned a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky and her Ph.D. in Computational and Applied Mathematics from Rice University. Williams’ honors and awards include an Otis A. Singletary Scholarship, National Society of Black Engineers Fellow, and AT&T Cooperative Research Fellowship. Williams is president of the INFORMS Minority Issues Forum and chair of the Coalition to Diversify computing.
Dale-Marie Wilson
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Birds-of-a-Feather Co-Chair,
Technical Papers Committee Member dwilso1@email.uncc.edu
Dale-Marie was born on the island of Trinidad, where she spent her childhood and teen years. She migrated to the United States in 1991 and became a citizen in 2000. She received her Bachelor of Science Degree from New York University in 1995, where she majored in Mathematics and minored in Computer Science. Her Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy Degrees were from Auburn University, in 2003 and 2006 respectively. Dr. Wilson is currently an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research interests include Human Centered Computing (HCC), Virtual Agents and Speech Technologies.
