Rajiv Gupta is Chairman, President and CEO of Rohm and Haas, which specializes in making cutting-edge specialty chemicals that are used in products as diverse as paint and computers. During this lecture, he shares thoughts on the importance of engineering to industry and the world.
Rajiv Gupta received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and received his Masters in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.
M. Christine DeVita is President of The Wallace Foundation, a private charitable foundation created by Lila and DeWitt Wallace, the founders of Reader's Digest, as a legacy of their own philanthropic lives.
DeVita joined the foundation in November 1987. Since then, she has led the foundation as it has shifted away from project-focused grantmaking and toward more integrated strategies that combine program, evaluation and communications expertise to deliver social benefits beyond the recipients of the foundation's direct grants.
DeVita earned her B.A. magna cum laude from Queens College of the City University of New York and her J.D. cum laude from Fordham University School of Law.
A. Dana Callow, Jr. is the Managing General Partner of Millennia. Prior to founding Millennia, Dana co-founded Boston Capital Ventures in 1982. Before that, he worked as a Senior Consultant at Braxton Associates (Deloitte Touche), an international strategic planning firm that was formed by professionals from Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company, where he worked with Fortune 100 companies in strategic planning and implementing merger and acquisition strategies. Prior to working in the management consulting business, Dana worked in sales and marketing and also was an Application Engineer for Tymshare (acquired by McDonnell-Douglas). Dana is a Director of Jobs for Massachusetts, a Massachusetts based non-profit organization comprised of business and political leaders including the Governor and Congressional leaders. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at Tufts University, on the Board of Overseers at Tufts University Medical School, and is on the Board of Advisors at the Foster Center for Private Equity, part of the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Dana Callow is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University and holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School.
Janice Bourque is Senior Vice President and Group Head-Life Sciences for Comerica Bank. Formerly, Ms. Bourque was President/CEO of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MBC) where she led the organization for 12 years. Under her leadership, the MBC membership grew from 80 to over 400 organizations with revenue increasing from $500,000 to over $4.1 million. Ms. Bourque created multiple services, policy initiatives and the Education Foundation (MassBioEd) that focused on science education, workforce training and public awareness. Under Ms. Bourque's tenure, the MassBiotech 2010 was released which provided a blueprint for Massachusetts to remain at the forefront of the biotechnology revolution.
Ms. Bourque has held several previous senior managerial positions, including CFO of Cambridge Medical Technology Corporation, senior public accountant for Coopers & Lybrand Emerging and Middle Market Group, and as a NASA Space Science grant project manager for the first satellite payloads to be repaired by the space shuttle missions.
Ms. Bourque was a member of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's Transition Team. She is currently a Board of Director of the Boston History Collaborative and Chair of the Board of the Women Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology (WEST). In 2004, she was awarded the Woman of Valor Award by the American Diabetes Association and the 2004 Distinguished Leadership Award by the Huntington Disease Society for her work in public policy and public health. In 2003, Boston Magazine named her one of Boston's 100 most influential women and the Cambridge Chamber Commerce awarded her Business Person of the Year. Ms. Bourque received her MBA degree in finance and accounting and her BS degree in veterinary science from the University of New Hampshire.
Pat Granahan joined the Fish & Neave IP Group of Ropes & Gray as a partner in 2001. Pat's practice includes patent application drafting and prosecution, technology licensing, and providing patentability, patent validity and non-infringement assessments in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and especially biotechnology and chemistry. Pat has been in practice since 1983 and during that time, has worked with many non-profit academic and research institutes, as well as companies ranging in size from small startups to large multinational businesses, particularly in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Pat is Patent Counsel at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and will continue in this role. Prior to joining the Firm, she was a partner of Hamilton, Brook, Smith, and Reynolds.
Sharee Umpierre is an Associate Professor at the University of Puerto Rico's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She has served as Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology of the University of Puerto Rico's School of Medicine since 1993. Sharee Umpierre received her BA in Chemistry from Cornell University and her MD from Harvard.
Harris Rosen has been President of Rosen Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Tamar Inns, since 1974.
Rosen served three years in the United States Army as an officer in Germany and South Korea. He began his professional career at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City as a convention salesman. He occupied various management positions in some of the larger Hilton hotels and eventually joined the Disney Company in California as Director of Hotel Planning. He left Disney to purchase the 256 room Quality Inn on International Drive in 1974.
Harris Rosen received his Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University.
Kevin McGovern is the Chairman and CEO of McGovern Capital LLC, which provides Intellectual Property Rights Strategy, and originates, structures and implements capital formation, joint ventures and business alliances. In addition, he is also the principal of McGovern & Associates, which specializes in corporate law and intellectual property strategy with an emphasis on emerging businesses, mergers and acquisitions, securities, patent enforcement, corporate and partnership joint ventures, capital formation and R&D financing. Kevin McGovern received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his law degree from St. John's University School of Law. He has also studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Jules Kroll is the Founder of Kroll, Inc., which was sold to Marsh & McLellan in 2004. Kroll became well known to Wall Street due to his investigative due dilligence work in the financial sector. In 2008, he founded Kroll Bond Rating Agency and K2Global Consulting with his son, Jeremy. Kroll was named "Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year" in 2003. Jules Kroll is a graduate of Cornell University.