ALI VELSHI executes several roles across CNN as the network’s chief business correspondent, anchor of Wake Up Call, host of Your Money, and host of the “Ali V” podcast. In addition to his anchor responsibilities, Velshi frequently reports from the field on breaking news events, politics, and in-depth personal profiles that offer insights into national issues. In 2010, he covered the impact of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, including exclusive access with the U.S. Coast Guard on a controlled oil burn. He has extensively reported on the global financial meltdown since 2008; the financial collapses of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and Lehman Brothers; the U.S. government’s bailout plan; and the battle over the fate of the nation’s big three automakers.
Velshi’s in-depth reporting for CNN’s “How the Wheels Came Off” was honored with a National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting in 2010. He anchored CNN’s breaking news coverage of the attempted terror attack on a flight into Detroit, for which the network was nominated for a 2010 Emmy. He was also honored with a 2010 Alumni Achievement Award from his alma mater, Queen’s University.
Previously, Velshi was an anchor with the business news channel CNNfn, where he hosted various interactive shows, including Your Money, Business Unusual, Insights, Street Sweep, and The Money Gang. Before joining CNNfn in 2001, he hosted The Business News, Canada’s first and only prime-time business news hour, airing nightly on Report on Business Television.
Earlier in his career, Velshi worked as a business anchor for Cable Pulse 24 and sister station CITY TV in Toronto, and as a reporter for CFTO-TV in Toronto—Canada’s most watched local television station.
In 1996, Velshi was awarded a fellowship to the U.S. Congress by the American Political Sciences Association, and worked with now-retired U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN).
Born in Kenya and raised in Toronto, Velshi graduated from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1994 with a degree in religion. Velshi’s first book, Gimme My Money Back: Your Guide to Beating the Financial Crisis, was released in January 2009. He is a member of the Grand Challenges Advisory Committee for the National Academy of Engineering, the Economic Club of New York, and the New York Financial Writers Association.
CRAIG R. BARRETT was chairman of the board of Intel Corporation until May 2009. He successfully led the corporation through some of its worst times, including the burst of the “dot-com bubble” and a severe recession. Dr. Barrett began his career with Intel in 1974 as a manager. He was promoted to a vice presidency of the corporation in 1984; to senior vice president in 1987, and to executive vice president in 1990. In 1992, Dr. Barrett was elected to Intel’s Board of Directors and was named chief operating officer in 1993. He became Intel’s fourth president in May 1997 and its chief executive officer in 1998. In May 2005 he became chairman of the board. After retiring from Intel, Dr. Barrett joined the faculty at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona.
From 1998–2005 he was a member of the Hong Kong Chief Executive’s Council of International Advisers. He joined the board of trustees of the Society for Science and the Public in 2010, in which year he also became the co-chair of the Skolkovo Innovation Center in Russia. He now serves as president and chairman of BASIS School Inc., one of the nation’s leading charter school groups.
Dr. Barrett is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. On June 3, 2008, he was honored by the Novosibirsk University with the title Doctor during a ceremony in Akademgorodok for the cooperation between Intel and the university. Along with the title he received the Golden Badge of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He received the Robert Lansing Hardy Award of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society in 1969. He and wife, Barbara, received the
Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship on January 31, 2006, in Phoenix, Arizona, from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In addition, Dr. Barrett holds a Datukship, an honorary Malaysian title akin to a knighthood.
Dr. Barrett is the author of more than 40 technical papers dealing with the influence of microstructure on the properties of materials and authored a textbook on materials science titled The Principles of Engineering Materials, which remains in use today.
Barrett attended Stanford University from 1957 to 1964 and received his Ph.D. in materials science. During his time at Stanford he joined the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. After graduation, he joined the Stanford University Department of Materials Science and Engineering and remained there until 1974. Dr. Barrett was NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Physical Laboratory in England from 1964 to 1965. He was also a Fulbright Fellow to the Technical University of Denmark in 1972, working with Professor Rodney Cotterill.
Seemingly as a testament to his career in higher education, Craig and his wife gave a $10 million endowment to Arizona State University in 2000, resulting in the institution naming their Honors College after the couple.
RODNEY A. BROOKS is the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (Emeritus) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is a robotics entrepreneur and founder, chairman, and CTO of Heartland Robotics Inc. He is also a founder, board member, and former CTO (1991–2008) of iRobot Corp. Dr. Brooks is the former director (1997–2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1981. He held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984. He has published many papers in computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and artificial life.
Dr. Brooks serves as a member of the International Scientific Advisory Group of National Information and Communication Technology Australia, and on the Global Innovation and Technology Advisory Council of John Deere & Co. He is an xconomist at Xconomy and a regular contributor to the Edge.
Dr. Brooks is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a founding fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, a corresponding member of the Australian Academy of Science, and a foreign fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He won the Computers and Thought Award at the 1991 IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence). He has been the Cray Lecturer at the University of Minnesota, the Mellon Lecturer at Dartmouth College, and the Forsythe Lecturer at Stanford University. He was co-founding editor of the International Journal of Computer Vision and is a member of the editorial boards of various journals, including Adaptive Behavior, Artificial Life, Applied Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Robots, and New Generation Computing. He starred as himself in the 1997 Errol Morris movie “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control” named for one of his scientific papers, a Sony Classics picture, available on DVD.
LAWRENCE D. BURNS is currently a professor of engineering practice at the University of Michigan and director of the Roundtable on Sustainable Mobility at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. His focus at both institutions is energy policy and transportation. He is also a senior advisor of CleanTech at VantagePoint Venture Partners.
Previously he was global process leader for research and development (R&D) and planning at General Motors Company (formerly Motors Liquidation Company). Burns joined GM at age 18, under a program in which he studied for an engineering degree at General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) in Flint, Michigan; students alternated every six weeks between their studies and work at the company. His scholarship was sponsored by GM’s research laboratory (the lab he later ran as head of R&D), and he went on to earn a master’s degree in engineering and public policy from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. During his 40-year career at GM, Burns played an increasingly central role in the company’s many innovations and experiments in auto technology and design. Dr. Burns served as vice president of R&D and strategic planning at General Motors Corporation from May 1998 to July 2009.
His vision is explained at length, and richly illustrated, in Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century (MIT Press, 2010), which he coauthored with Christopher Borroni-Bird and the late William J. Mitchell.
Dr. Burns is a member of the advisory council of Greentech Capital Advisors and serves as a director of Midwest Research Institute Inc. He serves as a member of the Automotive Strategy Board of General Motors and is a senior adviser to the chairman of Hess Corporation. He serves as a trustee at Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Burns is a contractor at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
URSULA M. BURNS is chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation. Ms. Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineering summer intern and later assumed roles in product development and planning. From 1992 through 2000, she led several business teams including the office color and fax business and office network printing business. In 2000, she was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services, heading up manufacturing and supply chain operations. She then took on the broader role of leading Xerox’s global research as well as product development, marketing, and delivery. In April 2007, Ms. Burns was named president of Xerox, expanding her leadership to also include the company’s IT organization, corporate strategy, human resources, corporate marketing, and global accounts. At that time, she was also elected a member of the company’s Board of Directors. Ms. Burns was named chief executive officer in July 2009 and assumed the role of chairman of the company on May 20, 2010.
In addition to the Xerox board, she is a board director of the American Express Corporation. Ms. Burns also provides leadership counsel to community, educational, and nonprofit organizations including FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), National Academy Foundation, MIT, and the U.S. Olympic Committee, among others. Ms. Burns was named by President Barack Obama to help lead the White House national program on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) in November 2009 and was appointed vice chair of the President’s Export Council in March 2010.
Ms. Burns earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Polytechnic Institute of New York University and a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University.
REGINA E. DUGAN was sworn in as the 19th director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on July 20, 2009.
Founded in 1958 as a response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, DARPA’s mission is to prevent and create strategic surprise. From its founding more than 50 years ago to current day, this mission implies one imperative for the agency: radical innovation for national security. Today, DARPA is the principal agency within the Department of Defense for research, development, and demonstration of high-risk, high-payoff projects for the current and future combat force.
Experienced in counterterrorism and defense against explosive threats, Dr. Dugan first served the nation as a DARPA program manager from 1996 to 2000. She directed a diverse $100 million portfolio of programs including the Dog’s Nose program, which focused on the development of an advanced, field-portable system for detecting the explosive content of land mines. In 1999, Dr. Dugan was named DARPA Program Manager of the Year and, in 2000, she was awarded the prestigious Bronze de Fleury Medal by the Army Engineer Regiment. Other recognition includes the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Exceptional Service and the Award for Outstanding Achievement.
Dr. Dugan’s contributions to the U.S. military are numerous. She led a counterterrorism task force for the deputy secretary of defense in 1999 and, from 2001 to 2003, she served as a special advisor to the vice chief of staff of the Army, completing a Quick Reaction Study on Countermine for Enduring Freedom. The results of this study were subsequently briefed to joint senior military leadership and implemented in the field.
Prior to her appointment as director of DARPA, Dr. Dugan co-founded Dugan Ventures, a niche investment firm, where she served as president and CEO. In 2005, Dugan Ventures founded RedXDefense LLC, a privately held company devoted to innovative solutions for combating explosive threats, where she also served as president and CEO.
Widely recognized for her leadership in technology development, Dr. Dugan has appeared on CNN, the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio, and The AAAS Science Report; has been featured in The
New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Prism, Forbes, and Science News, among others; and has delivered keynote remarks at events as diverse as All Things Digital (D9), AIA (Aerospace Industries Association) Board of Governors’ meeting, Defense Manufacturing Conference, and SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing. In 2011, she was named a Tech Titan by Washingtonian Magazine. Dr. Dugan previously participated in wide-ranging studies for the Defense Science Board, Army Science Board, National Research Council, and the Science Foundation, and sat on the Naval Research Advisory Committee and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Technology Panel.
Dr. Dugan obtained her doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Virginia Tech, and in 2011 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from California State University, Fullerton, only the 16th such honorary degree given since the university’s founding in 1957. She is the sole inventor or co-inventor on multiple patents and patents pending. Dr. Dugan is the co-author along with J.B. Jones of Engineering Thermodynamics (Prentice-Hall, 1996). She is the first female director of DARPA.
BRETT P. GIROIR is the vice chancellor for strategic initiatives for the Texas A&M University System. He is responsible for leading efforts that are critical to the development of the biotechnology initiatives within the A&M System and the emerging biotechnology corridor. Dr. Giroir also serves as executive director of the Institute of Innovative Therapeutics, a single, unified biomedical enterprise designed to improve global health through research, development, demonstration, and commercialization. He is president and chief executive officer of the National Biosecurity Foundation, a coalition of academic and industry partners advancing research, education, and economic development within the state of Texas and throughout the United States.
Prior to this position, Dr. Giroir was the Texas A&M University System vice chancellor for research. He came to the A&M System from DARPA, where he was director of the Defense Sciences Office from 2006 to 2008; from 2004 to 2006, he served as deputy director of that office. Prior to DARPA, Dr. Giroir served as associate dean for clinical affairs, University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center, and chief medical officer, Children’s Medical Center Dallas. He began his professional career with the UT Southwestern
Medical Center (Dallas), as an assistant professor and ended his work there as the Associates First Capital Corporation Distinguished Chair in Pediatrics.
Dr. Giroir received his B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University and his M.D. from UT Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas). He completed his residency in pediatrics at the Children’s Medical Center Dallas and Parkland Memorial Hospital and did a clinical fellowship in pediatric critical care at UT Southwestern Medical Center. From 1991–1993 he was a research fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Dallas.
DAVID M. KELLEY , founder and chairman of IDEO, is a California-based entrepreneur, educator, designer, and venture capitalist. He is recognized as one of America’s leading design innovators, in part thanks to his membership in the National Academy of Engineering and his receipt of numerous awards. Mr. Kelley serves as the Donald W. Whittier Professor in the Product Design Program at Stanford University, where he also established the school’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, also known as the d.school. Preparing the design thinkers of tomorrow earned Mr. Kelley the Sir Misha Black Medal for his “distinguished contribution to design education.” He has also won the Edison Achievement Award for Innovation, as well as the Chrysler Design Award and National Design Award in Product Design from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
