Chair for the Oak Ridge Associated Universities and the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative. He also serves as a Representative to the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable of the National Academies, as Trustee for the Southeastern Universities Research Association, Inc., as a Board Member of the Institutional Oversight Committee for the National Partnership for Advanced Computing Infrastructure (NPACI), the Board of Visitors of the US Army War College, Member of the International Consulting Board, Advisory Board for the Texas Coalition for Capital, the National Scientific and Policy Advisory Council for the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, and member of the AusTech Alliance of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.

MARCUS SHUTE currently serves as Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs and Professor in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science at Tennessee State University, an HBCU. During his career, Dr. Shute has served as a project team leader and Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, AT&T and Lucent Technologies; as Vice President of Engineering and as Vice President of Advanced Technologies at Luxcore Networks, Inc., an optical networking systems start-up company; CEO of Shute Enterprises, Inc., a consulting firm; President and Chairman of Nile Valle Investment Group, Inc., a real estate investment company; and co-founder and director of Aspire 2B, Inc. He has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and has published extensively and acquired patents in the areas of optical fiber communications, wireless communications, optical fiber amplifiers, planar waveguide technology, polarization phenomena, and electronic materials.