Keynote Presenters
Posted December 11th, 2007 by Nancy Reeves
Opening Keynote Presentation
Diana Oblinger
CEO & President, EDUCAUSE
Diana Oblinger is the President and CEO of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. The current membership comprises over 2,200 colleges, universities, and education organizations, including 200 corporations. Previously, Oblinger served as EDUCAUSE vice president responsible for the association’s teaching and learning activities and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Adult and Higher Education at North Carolina State University.
Prior to joining EDUCAUSE, Oblinger held positions in academia and business: Vice President for Information Resources and the Chief Information Officer for the 17-campus University of North Carolina system, Executive Director of Higher Education for Microsoft , and IBM Director of the Institute for Academic Technology. She was on the faculty at the University of Missouri-Columbia and at Michigan State University and an associate dean at the University of Missouri.
Oblinger serves on a variety of boards including the National Science Foundation ’s Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure and chairs the National Visiting Committee for NSF’s National Science Digital Library project. Dr. Oblinger has testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Employment, Safety, and Training and the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Technology.
A frequent keynote speaker, Oblinger is also the co-author the award winning What Business Wants from Higher Education. She is co-editor of seven books: The Learning Revolution , The Future Compatible Campus, Renewing Administration, E is for Everything, Best Practices in Student Services, Educating the Net Generation, and Learning Spaces . She is the author or co-author of dozens of monographs and articles on higher education and technology.
Dr. Oblinger has received several awards for teaching, research and distinguished service. She holds three degrees from Iowa State University and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Sigma Xi.
Closing Keynote Presentation
Henry Jenkins
Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities
Henry Jenkins is the Co-Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of twelve books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture, The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, and From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. Jenkins writes regularly about media and cultural change at his blog, henryjenkins.org. He is one of the principal investigators for The Education Arcade, a consortium of educators and business leaders working to promote the educational use of computer and video games and of the Knight Center for Future Civic Media, a joint effort with the MIT Media Lab to use new media to enhance how people live in local communities. He is one of the principle investigators for GAMBIT, a lab focused on promoting experimentation through game design, and of Project nml, a MacArthur Foundation funded project that develops curricular materials focused on promoting the social skills and cultural competencies needed to become a full participant in the new media era. Jenkins has a MA in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa and a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Winston Soboyejo
Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Princeton University
Winston (Wole) Soboyejo was educated at King's College London, and The University of Cambridge before coming to the United States in 1988 to become a research scientist at The McDonnell Douglas Research Labs in St. Louis , MO. In 1992, he worked briefly as a Principal Research Engineer at the Edison Welding Institute before joining the engineering faculty of The Ohio State University in Columbus , OH . From 1997 to 1998, he was a Visiting Professor in the departments of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering at MIT. In 1999 he was appointed as a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University.
Profesor Soboyejo is also the Director of the U.S./Africa Materials Institute, and the Director of the Undergraduate Research Program at The Princeton Institute of Science and Technology of Materials. His research focuses on experimental studies of biomaterials and the mechanical behavior of materials. Current areas of interest include micromechanical machines, nanoparticles for disease detection, biomedical systems for prostheses, and cardiovascular systems, infrastructure materials, and alternative energy systems.