Fall 2019 Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Nicole Darden Ford
, Vice President, CISO, Carrier Global Corporation
Nicole Darden Ford is an IT Strategic leader with 20+ years of success spanning the federal government and Corporate Venues. Nicole has held a variety of leadership roles within the private sector and federal government, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She has extensive knowledge and application experience in cybersecurity, cyber forensics and homeland security practices. In her most recent role, as the Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for Carrier, she is responsible for Information Security and Product (IOT) Cybersecurity, globally. Prior to joining Carrier, Nicole was the Vice President of Information Security and the Chief Information Security Officer for Baxter International, Inc. where she had global responsibility for Information Security, as well as Information Governance and IT Quality Compliance. Nicole joined Baxter in December 2016 as the Vice President of Information Security and Chief Information Security Officer from Venable LLP, an AMLAW 100 law firm, where she was Director of Information Security. Nicole has a master’s degree in the Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia and holds the C|CISO, CISM, CEH and CISSP certifications.
Kathleen McFetridge, Vice President of Global Infrastructure, Carrier Global Corporation
Prior to working at Carrier, Kathleen worked at McKesson and held the roles of VP of Automation and the VP of End User Experience. Her automation work spans RPA, ML, Virtual agent and AR. She has implemented automation efforts in the finance, human resources, supply chain, and end user space and specializes in business development and execution. She has been a speaker at the annual AI Summit as well as other technical summits for automation and technology. She has been an active member in various Women in Technology organizations and a supporter of multiple STEM initiative programs in TX, MI, PA, and GA. Kathleen holds a BA in Political Science and an MIS in Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Kathleen is married with two children and a lifelong nerd.
Felix Hartmann,
Partner, Hartmann Capital LLC
Felix Hartmann is a German-American Tech Entrepreneur, Futurist, and Trader. Hartmann serves as the Managing Partner of Hartmann Capital, navigating its flagship Hartmann Digital Assets Fund. Next to the hedge fund, Hartmann also founded Crypto Academy, one of the largest crypto trader and investor educational platforms and has since advised several blockchain projects. Hartmann is also the bestselling futuristic author of 'Dark Age' and a leading voice on social media championing topics like blockchain, AI, and trans-humanism.
Lightning Talks
Dr. S. Raymond Golish, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., is a surgeon, scientist and healthcare executive working at the intersection of technology, quality, and value. As a PhD computer scientist and data scientist with extensive experience in advanced analytics, clinical trials, artificial intelligence, and medical devices, he has held leadership roles in industry, government, and professional societies. He chairs the Biomedical Engineering Committee of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) and is a former special government employee to the US Food and Drug Administration among many other roles.
Dr. Michael Smirnov is a neural data scientist and research associate professor at Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) and Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Through collaborations with MPFI Scientists, he utilizes machine learning to develop software which aids in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of multimodal neuroscientific data. In September 2018 he was selected to run MPFI’s one-of-a-kind data science program in collaboration with FAU.
Alice Rose, Senior Product Manager, Modernizing Medicine
Alice Rose is Senior Product Manager at Modernizing Medicine. Since joining the company in early 2014, she has been instrumental in helping to build new Clinical Research and Data Warehouse products. Her passion is in using big data and advanced analytics to build products that help physicians practice more efficiently and make timely, accurate diagnoses that result in better outcomes for patients. Alice holds a degree in Neuroscience from Wellesley College.
Cheryl Altany, Global Strategy Head-Education/STEM/Campuses, Carrier Global Corporation
Cheryl has more than 25 years of experience in transforming global corporate organizations and new technology introductions. She has served as Global IT leader in technology solutions, mobility, telco and services including management consulting (IBM, HP, Perot Systems, ICL Fujitsu). Her background experience also includes positions as Associate Dean for two new university campuses; guest lecturer for graduate students in UK. Cheryl is actively re-defining approaches to academic and “living lab” environments on intelligent campuses. She has served as the Chair for the Corporate Education Council for Research and Development and Consulting where she has designed curriculum and delivered plans for global populations. Cheryl earned her B.A. degree in Journalism and English at the University of Minnesota; She earned a M.A. in Higher Education Administration at Bowling Green State University, an MBA at Florida International University, and is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in International Management/ Organizational Design (Nova Southeastern University). She has dual citizenship in the UK and US.
Steven Teachout,
Business Development Leader, Carrier Global Corporation
Steven has more than 20 years of experience developing deep relationships with C-suite customers in the building industry and creating tailored building solutions for customers across various industries. He has extensive experience working in aviation, commercial real estate, criminal justice, data centers, education, federal government, healthcare, and municipal government. A proven listener and enjoys pulling together multidisciplinary teams to provide long- term solutions for customers
Joe Tossing, SE Regional Sales Manager for Automated Logic Corporation
Joe has over 25 years of experience in providing DDC controls solutions in every major vertical market application including Higher Education, K-12, Commercial, Industrial, Healthcare, Data Center and Critical Environment facilities. He is an advocate for the use of leading edge technologies to optimize indoor environments and leveraging technology and meta data to enable the physical environment to optimize the performance of it’s occupants while providing evidence based visualization platforms to monitor and communicate sustainability objectives for the built environment.
I obtained B.S. in Theoretical Physics from University of Science and Technology of China in 1982 and obtained Ph.D. in Physics from Florida Atlantic University in 1993. I worked as a postdoc in Metals and Ceramics Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1993 to 1996. I became a staff scientist in 1996 at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, which is a facility center funded by NSF and is jointly supported by Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, and Westinghouse, and I have worked there since then, responsible for working with academic community to develop high performance computing applications in the area of condensed matter physics and materials science. I also have an adjunct faculty appointment with the physics department of Duquesne University, responsible for teaching advanced-level physics courses. My research activities include development of high performance ab initio electronic structure calculation methods for the study of complex structures and random alloys. I have received Gordon-Bell Prize for best achievement in high-performance computing. My work on developing and implementing a linear scaling ab initio electronic structure calculation method has been included in Year 2000 Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Welcome Remarks
Ata Sarajedini, Ph.D., Dean and Professor, FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
Ata Sarajedini is the Dean of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. Before coming to FAU in January of 2017, he served as Associate Dean for Natural Sciences and Mathematics as well as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. Before that, he was Associate Chair and Acting Chair of the Department of Astronomy. After receiving his Ph.D. in Astronomy at Yale in 1992, he spent seven years as a postdoctoral researcher and a Hubble Fellow at Kitt Peak National Observatory and San Francisco State University. Dr. Sarajedini spent two years at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT as an Assistant Professor before moving to the University of Florida in 2001. He received an NSF CAREER award in 2001, a University of Florida Research Professor award in 2006, and was the principal investigator of a large Treasury project with the Hubble Space Telescope starting in 2014. Dr. Sarajedini has over 500 publications, which have over 11,000 citations. Of these publications, over 200 have appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. His Hirsch Index according to Google Scholar is 63.His research is focused on resolved stellar populations in Local Group galaxies. These include field stars, open and globular clusters in the Milky Way, M31, M33, the Magellanic Clouds, and the numerous nearby dwarf galaxies. When we resolve individual stars in these systems, we can apply our knowledge of star formation and stellar evolution to understanding the process of galaxy formation and evolution.
Joe Russo is the founding Executive Director of the Palm Beach Tech Association, a nonprofit committed to Building the Palm Beaches into a Tech Hub. Since July 2015, Joe led the organization to attract over 150 corporate members and over 8,000 professionals to their community, with an annual budget over $250,000 and 3 full time staff. In 2016, Joe spearheaded and effort to bring Downtown West Palm Beach its first coworking space, raising over $150,000 with the Knight Foundation, City of West Palm Beach, and private donors.