Appendix C
Speaker Biographical Sketches
Eric B. Bauman, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He was one of the early Games+Learning+Society (GLS) students and was advised by Professors Betty Hayes and Kurt Squire, both renowned scholars in the game-based learning movement. Dr. Bauman is also a registered nurse, firefighter, and paramedic with more than 20 years of clinical, research, teaching, and command experience.
After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Bauman held the position of Faculty Associate in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He subsequently founded Clinical Playground, LLC, a consulting service focusing on game and simulation-based learning. Dr. Bauman is Assistant Dean for the Institute for Research and Clinical Strategy and was recently named Fellow and Visiting Scholar at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, with GLS. Dr. Bauman also currently holds the rank of Division Chief of Emergency Medical Services for the Blooming Grove Fire Department.
David Benton, R.G.N., Ph.D., FFNF, FRCN, FAAN, took up post as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) on October 2, 2015. Immediately prior to this he worked at the International Council of Nurses in Geneva, Switzerland, for the previous 10 years, firstly as their consultant on nursing and health policy specializing in regulation, licensing, and education, and then as CEO. He qualified as a general and mental health nurse at the then Highland College of
Nursing and Midwifery in Inverness, Scotland. His M.Phil. research degree focused on the application of computer-assisted learning to post-basic nurse education. Over the past 30 years he has had articles published in relation to research, practice, education, leadership, regulation, and policy topics. He has a Ph.D. summa cum laude from the Complutense University of Madrid for his work on researching an international comparative analysis of the regulation of nursing practice. Dr. Benton has held senior roles for 25 years across a range of organizations. These roles included working as Executive Director of Nursing at a health authority in London, as a senior civil servant in the Northern and Yorkshire regions, as Chief Executive of a nurse regulatory body in Scotland, and as Nurse Director of a University Trust Health System.
Dr. Benton is the recipient of several awards and honors. He is particularly proud of being awarded the inaugural Nursing Standard Leadership award in 1993. He was presented with Fellowship of the Florence Nightingale Foundation in 2001, Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing in 2003 for his contribution to health and nursing policy, and most recently became a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 2015. Dr. Benton has held several visiting appointments and is currently a visiting professor of nursing policy at the University of Dundee in Scotland.
Catherine M. Casserly, Ph.D., works at the nexus of research and practice as a catalyst for openness, innovation, and leadership with a passion for learning ecosystems that support high-quality education experiences for all. Dr. Casserly works on a number of high-impact projects and is engaged by a portfolio of organizations. She is currently Interim Open Educational Resources (OER) Lead at the Hewlett Foundation and Senior Advisor for the Carnegie and Lumina Foundations. She is a member of the Advisory Council for the National Science Foundation, chairing its subcommittee on open licensing, and a Research Affiliate with Institute for the Future. Previously, Dr. Casserly was Chief Executive Officer and President of Creative Commons, Vice President at EdCast, Fellow with the Aspen Institute, and Vice President at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She was founding architect of the OER field, developing, managing and launching the 100M inaugural portfolio for the Hewlett Foundation.
Early in her career, she taught mathematics in Kingston, Jamaica. Dr. Casserly earned her Ph.D. in the economics of education from Stanford University, B.A. in mathematics from Boston College, and holds an honorary doctorate from Open University, United Kingdom.
Victor Cid is a Senior Computer Scientist with the Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC), a branch of the Specialized Information Services Division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH). Mr. Cid has been conducting research and development activities for NLM for more than 20 years in a variety of computer science and engineering topics that include virtual reality and serious gaming applications for training and education. Mr. Cid is a frequent presenter at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and a member of several cross-institutional groups and committees, including the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction of the U.S. National Science and Technology Council, the Coordinating Board of the NLM-sponsored Latin American Network of Disaster and Health Information, and General Services Adminitration and NIH Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence Special Interest Groups.
Malcolm Cox, M.D., is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He most recently served for 8 years as the Chief Academic Affiliations Officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in Washington, DC, where he oversaw the largest health professions training program in the country and repositioned the VA as a major voice in clinical workforce reform, educational innovation, and organizational transformation. Dr. Cox received his undergraduate education at the University of the Witwatersrand and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. After completing postgraduate training in internal medicine and nephrology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he rose through the ranks to become Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Clinical Education. He has also served as Dean for Medical Education at Harvard Medical School; upon leaving the Dean’s Office, he was appointed the Carl W. Walter Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Cox has served on the National Leadership Board of the Veterans Health Administration, the VA National Academic Affiliations Advisory Council (which he currently chairs), the National Board of Medical Examiners, the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, the Board of Directors of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, and the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (which he currently co-chairs). Dr. Cox is the recipient of the University of Pennsylvania’s Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and in 2014 was recognized by the Association of American Medical Colleges as a nationally and internationally renowned expert in health professions education.
Micki Cuppett, Ed.D., ATC, has served as the Executive Director of the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) for the past 3 years. Prior to taking the position of Executive Director, she served as President of the CAATE and has a long history of involvement
with accreditation including time as a site visitor and CAATE Commissioner. Dr. Cuppett previously served as Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine and the Director of Athletic Training at the University of South Florida. Her area of research interest and expertise includes the use of simulation, educational technology, and interprofessional education. She earned her Ed.D. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Northern Iowa, while her undergraduate degree is from the University of North Dakota. Prior to entering academe, she worked as an athletic trainer in various settings, including high schools, colleges, hospitals, and the military.
Hector M. Garcia, M.A., is a Senior Project Scientist at Old Dominion University’s (ODU’s) Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center in the areas of visualization, virtual environments, and virtual reality; integrating state of the art visualization systems with modeling and simulation applications; and the scientist most closely involved with the CAVE (cave automatic virtual environment) on ODU’s Norfolk campus. Mr. Garcia received his master’s degree in architecture from the University of Houston in 1997. Mr. Garcia’s expertise include the use of large-scale visual simulation display systems, the use of tracking devices and robotics, and haptic devices used in training and education.
Mr. Garcia has more than 20 years of experience developing highly interactive virtual environments for training. He has been involved in a variety of research projects funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Naval Research, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and private industry. Before joining ODU, Mr. Garcia spent 5 years as a researcher at the University of Houston affiliated with the Virtual Environments Technology Laboratory working on several NASA projects for astronaut training as well as NSF-funded research for using virtual reality as a teaching tool. While working on these past research projects, Mr. Garcia developed the virtual environments, as well as managed teams of developers to design the game play of all of these simulations, to achieve the proposed training goals. He has also successfully managed projects, collaborated with other researchers, and helped produce several peer-reviewed publications on each of the projects in which he was involved.
Emilia Iwu, M.S.N., R.N., APNC, FWACN, is a Nurse Practitioner, Robert Wood Johnson and Jonas Foundations Fellow, and faculty at the Rutgers School of Nursing in New Jersey. Since 2006, Dr. Iwu has worked as a Technical Advisor with the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria supporting their U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief–funded Nursing and Community Health programs. During this period, she served on policy,
technical, and guideline committees and trained and mentored nurses and community health workers to provide HIV services at health facilities and communities in Nigeria. She led the development and implementation of a Nigerian National HIV & AIDS curriculum currently in use at pre-licensure nursing, midwifery, and community health schools in Nigeria. She implemented nurse-managed antiretroviroal therapy in Nigeria and instituted regional trainings to enhance the knowledge and skills of nurses and community health workers. Dr. Iwu is a co-chair of the Global HIV Nursing committee, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, and a recipient of the Sigma Theta Tau International Global Nursing Research Grant in 2014 for her Ph.D. dissertation research “Shifting HIV Treatment from Doctors to Nurses in Africa: Correlations among Nurse and Setting Characteristics, Self-Efficacy and Job Satisfaction among Nurses Performing Task Sharing Roles.” Her research interests are health professional education, workforce, HIV clinical and community outcomes, emerging models of care to improve patient access and outcomes, and the reduction of health disparities for vulnerable populations. She plays active leadership roles in several professional organizations, including the National Association of Nigerian Nurses in North America, where she applies her global experience to build collaborations with nurse leaders in Nigeria for practice and education.
Pamela Jeffries, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, ANEF (Workshop Co-Chair), Dean and Professor at The George Washington University (GW) School of Nursing, is nationally known for her research and work in developing simulations and online teaching and learning. Throughout the academic community, she is well regarded for her expertise in experiential learning, innovative teaching strategies, new pedagogies, and the delivery of content using technology in nursing education. Dr. Jeffries has served as the principal investigator on grants with national organizations such as the National League for Nursing, has provided research leadership and mentorship on national projects with the National Council State Board of Nursing, and has served as a consultant for health care organizations, corporations, large health care organizations, and publishers providing expertise in clinical education, simulations, and other emerging technologies.
Prior to joining GW, Dr. Jeffries was Vice Provost for Digital Initiatives and professor at the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins University, where she was previously the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Dr. Jeffries is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, an American Nurse Educator Fellow, and most recently, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow. She also serves as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education and is now serving as past President of the interprofessional, international Society for Simulation in Healthcare. She
has numerous publications, is sought to deliver presentations nationally and internationally, and has edited three books: Simulations in Nursing Education: From Conceptualization to Evaluation (2nd edition), Developing Simulation Centers Using the Consortium Model, and her newest book published by Lippincott and being launched at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare called Clinical Simulations in Nursing Education: Advanced Concepts, Trends, and Opportunities.
She has received federal and state grant funding to support her research focus in nursing education and the science of innovation and learning. Dr. Jeffries was inducted in the prestigious Sigma Theta Tau Research Hall of Fame and is the recipient of several teaching and research awards from the Midwest Nursing Research Society, the International Nursing Association of Clinical Simulations and Learning, and teaching awards from the National League for Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau, International, and most recently, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Excellence award.
Rob Kade started his career back in the 1990s with Abbott Labs within its sales and marketing division. Prior to joining Shadow Health Inc. as Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Kade headed up Intuitive Surgical’s Southeast robotic sales team.
Bill Kelly is co-founder and board member at ReelDx. His company focuses on capturing real patient experience in medical settings, and making these cases available for true case studies in a variety of educational settings. Mr. Kelly is an expert in both online health information and online education, having built award-winning products at Sapient Health Network (WebMD) and Learning.com. In addition to ReelDx, Mr. Kelly is on the board of directors for Leavitt Risk Management and Great Minds, and is a partner at the private equity firm AgriCascadia.
Ben Lok, Ph.D., M.S., is a Professor in the Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering Department at the University of Florida (UF) and co-founder of Shadow Health Inc., an educational software company. His research focuses on virtual humans and mixed reality in the areas of computer graphics, virtual environments, and human–computer interaction. Dr. Lok received a Ph.D. (2002, advisor: Dr. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.) and an M.S. (1999) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.S. in computer science (1997) from the University of Tulsa. He did a postdoctoral fellowship (2003) under Dr. Larry F. Hodges.
Dr. Lok received a UF Term Professorship (2017–2020), the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering Faculty Mentoring Award (2016), National Science Foundation Career Award (2007–2012), and the UF
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computer & Information Science & Engineering Teacher of the Year Award in 2005–2006. He and his students in the Virtual Experiences Research Group have received Best Paper Awards at Association for Computer Machinery I3D (Top 3, 2003) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Virtual Reality (VR) (2008). He currently serves on the Steering Committee of the IEEE VR conference, was general chair of IEEE VR 2014 and IEEE VR 2013, and was program co-chair of the ACM VR Software and Technology 2009, IEEE VR 2010, and IEEE VR 2011. Dr. Lok is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Computer and Graphics, and ACM Computing Surveys.
Elliot Maxwell, J.D., advises public- and private-sector clients on strategic issues involving the intersection of business, technology, and public policy in the Internet, e-commerce, health care, and higher education domains. He is a member of the Board on Research Data and Information of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Democracy and Technology; a Fellow of the International University of Japan; a Trustee Emeritus of Brown University; and a member of the Board of Trustees of Salve Regina University. He has served as a Fellow of the Communications Program at Johns Hopkins University and as a Distinguished Research Fellow at the eBusiness Research Center of The Pennsylvania State University. He worked closely with the Committee for Economic Development on a series of reports on the digital economy, and with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Electronic Product Code global/GS1 on policy issues surrounding the implementation of the Electronic Product Code version of radio-frequency identification (RFID). He serves as an expert advisor to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and has consulted with—among others—the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the William and Flora Hewlett and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundations.
From 1998 until 2001, Mr. Maxwell served as Special Advisor for the Digital Economy to U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Norm Mineta. In this position he was the principal advisor to the Secretary on the Internet and e-commerce. He coordinated the U.S. Department of Commerce’s efforts to establish a legal framework for electronic commerce, ensure privacy, protect intellectual property, increase Internet security, encourage broadband deployment, expand Internet participation, and analyze the impact of electronic commerce on all aspects of the economy. He was deeply involved in the development of federal e-government activities and was a founding member of the Federal Inter-agency Working Group on Electronic Commerce.
Robin McCune is the Director of Corporate Accounts for Laerdal Medical. She is responsible for a team of Strategic Account Managers focused on training initiatives in the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Health Agency, and federal health care agencies. She also leads a team of program consultants focused on leveraging simulation industry standards, guidelines, and best practices in hospitals and schools of nursing. Prior to joining Laerdal, Ms. McCune was the National Sales Director for Commercial and Healthcare Markets for the American Heart Association.
Katherine McKnight, Ph.D., M.A., is a member of RTI International’s Center for Evaluation and Study of Educational Equity whose work emphasizes teaching and learning, school improvement, and educator effectiveness. Using the latest quantitative social science methods, Dr. McKnight develops studies for mission-driven organizations and collaborates with policy makers to turn research findings into practice.
Currently, Dr. McKnight is involved with a study of parent–teacher home visits in four districts across the United States. She is reviewing research on implicit biases related to race and culture that may affect the visits, and conducting focus groups of the educators and families involved. The study is funded by the Flamboyan Foundation. She is also leading a study funded by the Kellogg Foundation, investigating what expert teachers do to reduce or eliminate opportunity gaps for their students in underresourced schools and communities.
Geoffrey T. Miller, M.S., EMT-P, joined Eastern Virginia Medical School in January 2011 and oversees the expansion of simulation-based educational activities, curriculum development, educational outcomes, and translational research. Previously, he was the Associate Director and Curriculum Development for the Division of Prehospital and Emergency Healthcare at the Micahel S. Gordon Center for Research in Medical Education at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Joel Nelson, M.S.W., M.P.H., is the Acting Director of the Division of Nursing and Public Health at the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) Bureau of Health Workforce, where he provides strategic guidance for a $200 million portfolio of programs spanning more than 800 federal awards (FY16) in nursing, public health, and behavioral health and two national coordinating centers. Mr. Nelson has a Master’s in Public Health and a Master’s in Social Work, and his work experience prior to HRSA includes psychological health and traumatic brain injury research, prevention, and care; case management in rural primary health care; public health advocacy; environmental health and justice initiatives; and emergency preparedness and response.
Ruth E. Nemire, Pharm.D., Ed.D., joined the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy as the associate executive vice president in January 2013. Dr. Nemire’s responsibilities include strategic planning, developing and assessing programs, design of products and services to assist members in leadership and curriculum development, educational research and scholarly teaching including interprofessional education, and global partnerships and development. She is responsible for scanning and interpretation of the higher education, health professions education, and health care environments for trends, information, and resources of potential interest and benefit for members. She works with leadership groups to facilitate their work in service to American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy members and builds relationships with external organizations that complement and support programs of the association.
Dr. Nemire is a graduate of Ohio Northern University and the University of Toledo Colleges of Pharmacy. She completed formal fellowship training in neurology with an emphasis in epilepsy at the University of Miami College of Medicine in Miami, Florida. Dr. Nemire completed a Doctorate in Education with a major in higher education leadership at the Nova Southeastern University Fischer School of Education in December 2009.
Dan Norton is the Chief Creative Officer and a Founding Partner of Filament Games. He has been a designer, creative director, and advocate for games and game-based learning (GBL) for more than a decade, working on playful experiences that explore topics as diverse as plant anatomy to empathy. Mr. Worton specializes in both GBL design practices and processes for fostering creative teams.
Andrea Parodi, Ph.D., R.N., is a Research Associate Professor and Lead for Medical/Healthcare focus areas at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center, a dedicated research center within Old Dominion University (ODU). Prior to working at ODU, she completed 26 years in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. During this time she had various assignments such as Head of Nursing Research and the Lead for the Navy’s Team Resource Center for Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety, a patient safety and research activity dedicated to supporting patient safety and communication that enables the development of high-performance clinical teams in the Navy/Marine Corps and the U.S. Department of Defense. This Center was located at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Virginia. Prior to this assignment Dr. Parodi was the Program Manager for Field Medical Technologies for the Navy and Marine Corps while based at Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, California.
Dr. Parodi completed a Ph.D. in Nursing at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, with dual specializations in Health Policy Analysis and
Higher Education Leadership. The education foci incorporated course work completion at Peabody, the School of Education at Vanderbilt University, and the remaining degree requirements were completed concomitantly with the Health Policy Analysis work while at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. During her course of study in health policy, Dr. Parodi completed a doctoral residency in Health Policy Analysis in the Washington, DC, office of U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. Prior to her doctoral degree, she earned a Master of Science degree in Nursing as a clinical nurse specialist in critical care nursing and burns at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, and also served as the Clinical Coordinator of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit and Open Heart Recovery Room at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, After leaving Vanderbilt, she was the Program Lead for Critical Care Nursing in the B.S.N. Nursing Program, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee. Dr. Parodi also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from College of Mount St. Vincent on-the-Hudson and a B.S.N. degree in Nursing was pursued at Pace University in Westchester, New York, and 1 year of course work and practicum was completed in Special Education at The University of Texas at El Paso.
Susan Persky, Ph.D., is an associate investigator and head of the Immersive Virtual Environment Testing Unit in the Social and Behavioral Research Branch (SBRB), National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Institutes of Health. She earned a B.A. in psychology from Northwestern University. She earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she studied at the Research Centers for Virtual Environments and Behavior. After conducting postdoctoral research at Columbia University, she came to the SBRB in 2005. Here, she built and led the Immersive Virtual Environment Testing Area, an immersive virtual reality technology-based experimental research lab within the SBRB. She became an associate investigator at NHGRI in 2009 and the head of the Immersive Virtual Environment Test Unit in 2011.
Dr. Persky splits her effort between providing leadership for the Immersive Virtual Environment Testing Area and conducting her programmatic research. Her work investigates the function of new genomic knowledge about common conditions like obesity in interactions between health care providers and patients and in public and online discourse. She has authored several publications and given a number of invited lectures related to this research program. She has also published both peer-reviewed and invited pieces on immersive virtual reality research methodology.
Christoph Pimmer, Ph.D. (Workshop Co-Chair), is senior researcher and lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz. He completed his Ph.D.
(Dr. oec.) at the University of Zürich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology with distinction/summa cum laude. Dr. Pimmer acted as visiting research associate at the University College London and at Columbia University in New York City.
Dr. Pimmer has been working in the fields of digital global learning and knowledge management for more than 15 years and he has developed a particular interest in global and public health. In these areas, Dr. Pimmer has published extensively and his work has been accepted in leading journals in the fields of health care sciences and services, medical informatics, and education.
Angela Robert co-founded Conquer Mobile with a vision to transform the way people work by effortlessly embracing mobile technology. She leads with effervescent passion and inimitable style—driving an unusual combination of innovation and process efficiency.
Ms. Robert established her credentials as a software engineer at Scotiabank, IBM, and Electronic Arts (EA). At EA she worked on more than 20 games in 5 years and as Development Director for Skate and Skate 2.
Susan C. Scrimshaw, Ph.D., is President of The Sage Colleges, Troy, New York. Previous positions include President of Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts; Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Associate Dean of public health and professor of public health and anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Barnard College, with a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University. Her research includes community participatory research methods, health disparities, pregnancy outcomes, violence prevention, and culturally appropriate delivery of health care. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Anthropological Association. She served on the Chicago and Illinois State Boards of Health. She is past President of the board of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation for Science and of the Society for Medical Anthropology, and former Chair of the Association of Schools of Public Health. Her honors include the prestigious Yarmolinsky Medal, given by the National Academy of Medicine for distinguished service; the Margaret Mead Award; and a Hero of Public Health gold medal awarded by President Vicente Fox of Mexico. Dr. Scrimshaw lived in Guatemala until age 16. She speaks Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
Radhika Shah is an Angel & Impact investor, tech industry veteran, and Co-President of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, a more than 1,000-member Stanford club of entrepreneurial Stanford students, faculty, and alumni. She
has been an an advisor, mentor, and judge at Innovation Accelerators Startx & Skydeck Labs. She is a co-founder of the mentoring group RajeevCircle. org. She has been a speaker/panelist at Stanford classes, seminars, and at events such as the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford.
She is an advisor to the Sustainable Development Goals Philanthropy Platform, and she co-founded the former Ashoka SV chapter, on the SV-Leadership Council for Action for India. She is also on the International Advisory board of the Business and Human Rights Resource Center and an advisor to Impact Experiences and Illumen Capital, a fund of impact funds.
She has been a judge at the United States Small Business Association and is deeply engaged with the United Nations. She is passionate about leveraging technology for social good and active in civic engagement and social causes since her early childhood, having grown up under the influence of Gandhi Ashram in India. She holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.
George Siemens is an educator and researcher on learning, technology, networks, analytics, and openness in education. He is the author of Knowing Knowledge, an exploration of how the context and characteristics of knowledge have changed and what it means to organizations today, and the Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning. Knowing Knowledge has been translated into Hungarian, Italian, Mandarin, Persian, and Spanish. Dr. Siemens is the Associate Director of the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca University, leading the learning analytics research team.
He has delivered keynote addresses in more than 30 countries on the influence of technology and media on education, organizations, and society. His work has been profiled in provincial, national, and international newspapers (including The New York Times), radio, and television. His research has received numerous national and international awards, including an honorary doctorate from Universidad de San Martin de Porres for his pioneering work in learning, technology, and networks.
Dr. Siemens is a founding member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (http://www.solaresearch.org). He has served as a member of the Steering Committee for Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education’s ED-MEDIA conference since 2008. He is on the editorial board of numerous journals, including Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching’s Journal of Online Learning and Teaching and Journal of Interactive Media in Education. He pioneered massive open online courses that have included almost 20,000 participants.
Diane J. Skiba, Ph.D., M.Ed., is a Professor and the Director for Healthcare Informatics Specialty at the University of Colorado College of Nursing. She has taught course for nurses about technology since 1982. She is the editor of the Emerging Technologies Column for the journal Nursing Education Perspectives. She is a Fellow in the American College of Medical Informatics and an honorary Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the Academy of Nursing Education. She is the Chair of the International Medical Informatics Association Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group.
Sunbin Song is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Dr. Song received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Georgetown University.
Jeanie Staton is a Strategic Accounts and Implementation Specialist for Laerdal Medical. She is a former educator with more than 10 years in health science publishing. She currently works with hospitals and nursing schools to implement digital resources into their programs and departments. Understanding the transformation taking place in health education, Ms. Staton seeks to continue the shift from traditional modes of learning into innovative technology and practice.
Cynthia A. Walker, M.B.A., joined Medtronic in 1997 and brings a wide range of experience in effective leadership. Her current responsibilities include Global Medical Education, Fellows Programs, Procedure Training, Sales Force Technical Education, the Grants and Donations function, Customer Insight, and Professional Relations. She leads a team of individuals who develop educational curricula and provide an in-depth overview of cardiac rhythm heart failure products and therapies, including history, terminology, products, and cardiac therapies in easy-to-understand language. Global curriculum is delivered using multiple modalities including in vivo, didactic, blended, peer-to-peer symposium, and via an extensive Learning Content Management System. The Customer Insight Group is responsible for gathering both qualitative and quantitative blinded and unblinded data to help the business incorporate the voice of the customer in all cardiac rhythm disease management products, processes, and programs. This group manages advisory boards, focus groups, and market research studies for the organization with the vision to bring the voice of the customer into all that they do.
She has held various roles in field sales, field management, and market development. In 2004, she assumed the role of a Director, Training and
Education, and is responsible for technical field education and customer training. As a Senior Director, she has held leadership positions of increasing responsibility in medical education and diagnostic sales. Prior to Medtronic, she held roles in sales and account management with Kimberly-Clark Professional Healthcare and AT&T.
Ms. Walker holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Business and Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh.
Paul Worley, Ph.D., M.M.B.S., is an academic rural doctor and was appointed as Australia’s first National Rural Health Commissioner. Previously, Dr. Worley served as the Dean of Medicine at Flinders University. His work in the science of rural, community-based, medical education, and its impact on addressing the maldistribution of doctors for rural and underserved areas, has changed the face of medical education and rural medical workforce policy nationally and internationally. Dr. Worley’s leadership of junior doctor training in general practice has transformed the transition from medical school to postgraduate training for general practice. He is a past President of the Rural Doctors Association of South Australia (SA), a previous national Vice President of Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, and a current Council Member of the Australian Medical Association (SA).
