Faculty Recruiting Support CICS

OAA 2011 Award Recipient Biographies

Ronald Craig Arkin

Ronald Craig Arkin is a Regents' Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Space Planning in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also the Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory.

Dr. Arkin's research interests include behavior-based reactive control and action-oriented perception for mobile robots and unmanned aerial vehicles, hybrid deliberative/reactive software architectures, robot survivability, multiagent robotic systems, biorobotics, human-robot interaction, robot ethics, and learning in autonomous systems. He has over 170 technical publications and has written or co-edited several books in these areas. Dr. Arkin is the Series Editor for the MIT Press book series Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents.

Professor Arkin was recently elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology and has served on the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He is a founding co-chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Robot Ethics and has co-chaired the Society's Human Rights and Ethics Committee since 2006. He is the IEEE RAS liaison to the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology and also served on the National Science Foundation's Robotics Council in 2001 and 2002. In 2001, he received the Outstanding Senior Faculty Research Award from the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and is a member of AAAI and ACM.

Dr. Arkin received a B.S. in Math and Chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1971, an M.S. in Organic Chemistry from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1977 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1987.

 

Renu Chipalkatti

Renu Chipalkatti is Global Head, Vertical Industry Solutions: Product Management at Verizonbusiness.

During her professional career, Ms. Chipalkatti has been responsible for the launch of new products for business and consumer markets, capitalizing on new and early technology innovations that she has developed into new lines of business delivering several hundred million dollars in revenue.

Currently, as Global Head for Vertical Industry Solutions at Verizonbusiness, she is responsible for product management and new product launch for all vertical market segments: e.g., finance, retail, healthcare, energy & utility, travel and transportation. Previously, Ms. Chipalkatti led strategic program development and next-generation services for global enterprises and small/medium businesses, and launched new programs in mobility, sustainability, M2M, and social media for enterprises.

She served as Executive Director for online broadband services for consumer markets, responsible for business development, product management, and operations. She developed and implemented an online strategy for broadband users delivering double digit revenue growth from the sale of online services, search and advertisements. She also introduced a new multimedia experience for FIOS (fiber-to-the-home) customers.

In 1996, Ms. Chipalkatti co-founded Superpages.com-the leading online yellow pages Internet service. She directed product management and product development, covering e-commerce, content and search and full back-office operations for multi-media advertisement creation and billing. In the 1990s, she also launched new services including video on demand, desktop call management, and distance learning.

Ms. Chipalkatti received an M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1987, and a BS degree in Physics from Bombay University in 1982. She has co-authored numerous papers, received three patent awards, and has two patent applications.

 

A. Anthony Gee

A. Anthony Gee is a co-Founder and Managing Partner of Carthage Capital Group, a boutique private equity firm with offices in New York City and Atlanta.

Mr. Gee has over fifteen years of experience in venture capital, private equity and mergers and acquisitions. He is responsible for creating a joint venture with the Indian-based conglomerate, Hinduja Group, to invest in high growth global suppliers to major corporations and governments. Mr. Gee is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Connectiva Systems.

Mr. Gee was previously a corporate finance executive in Smith Barney's Technology and Communications Group, and in Salomon Brothers' Media and Mergers & Acquisitions Groups.

Prior to investment banking, he was a Research Analyst at New Science Associates, an emerging technology and strategy think-tank. At New Science, Mr. Gee advised major corporations on Applied Intelligent Systems and other leading-edge technologies.

Mr. Gee is Chairman of Greening Youth, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing underserved youth with environmental internships.  He is a former member of the Federal Communications Commission's Blue Ribbon Panel on Entrepreneurship. Mr. Gee is also a member of the UMass Amherst College of Natural Sciences Advisory Board.

Mr. Gee received a B.S. in Computer Science, concentrating in Artificial Intelligence, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1990, where he was a National Science Foundation Scholar, and an M.B.A. in Finance from New York University's Stern School of Business in 1994, where he was a New York University Graduate Fellow.

 

Irene Ros

Irene Ros is a Research Developer at the Visual Communication Lab, a group within the Collaborative User Experience group at the Center for Social Software at IBM Research, Cambridge, MA. Irene builds engaging visualizations and user interfaces, exploring social activity and large datasets to promote social and civic engagement.

Ms. Ros is one of the co-creators of Many Bills, a visualization of Congressional legislation aimed at lowering the barrier between the U.S. legislative process and citizens. Many Bills combines visualization techniques with natural language processing and information retrieval to offer varying amounts of detail to users. Ms. Ros is also one of the developers on the Many Eyes project, a collaborative visualization tool that allows users to gather data, visualize it and discuss their visualizations on and off the site. She was also a part of the effort to launch The New York Times Visualization Lab, a derivative of Many Eyes. Ms. Ros also explored MBTA usage patterns in her visualization of A Day of MBTA.

Prior to joining IBM Research, Ms. Ros was a Staff Software Engineer at IBM Lotus, working in the Domino Server Administration group.

Ms. Ros recieved a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2006 and the 2006 Outstanding Undergraduate Achievement Award in Software Engineering. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the use of visual agent coordination language to model a real-world medical process: adult outpatient chemotherapy. She also worked on exploring the viability of long-distance point-to-point communication using the 802.11 standard.

 

John L. Woods

John L. Woods retired in 2006 as President and General Manager of TRW's Electromagnetic Systems Laboratory (ESL). At the time of his retirement, ESL was a 1500 person, $300M per year company focused on intelligence technology and systems to support U.S. Intelligence Operations. Earlier positions included Chief Scientist of TRW's Defense Data Systems and the Operations Manager for the Software and Information Systems Laboratories.

Among his many volunteer efforts, Dr. Woods is State Coordinator of Massachusetts Tax-Aide, a group of 650 volunteers at 250 sites across Massachusetts who prepare taxes for low and middle income taxpayers.  Before becoming state coordinator, he was a volunteer tax aide for three years.  In 2009, Dr. Woods received an award from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for developing a program to train high school students to be tax counselors. He is currently involved in the Caribbean Multicultural Center Project to develop a site for training Haitian and other Caribbean immigrants as tax counselors and in providing tax service to those communities.

From 2000-2003, Dr. Woods was a member of the volunteer Chaffee County Colorado Search and Rescue Leadership Group. In 2002, he led a capital project to move Search and Rescue from a number of scattered spaces into its own facility. Previously, he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Aurora Colorado Economic Development Council and the Board of Directors of the Silicon Valley Economic Development Council.

Dr. Woods received a B.S. in Speech from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1970, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1976 and 1980, respectively.

 

Wei Zhao

Wei Zhao is the Rector and Chaired Professor of the University of Macau. Under his leadership as Rector, the University of Macau has experienced a systematic transformation, including the establishment of the first Honours College and an undergraduate program with emphasis on research innovation.

Previously, Dr. Zhao worked as a faculty member at Amherst College, University of Adelaide, Texas A&M University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, serving in various university positions, including Chair of the Department of Computer Science, and subsequently, Senior Associate Vice President for Research at Texas A&M, and Dean of Science at RPI.

Prof. Zhao is an internationally recognized researcher whose interests include distributed computing, real-time systems, computer networks, and cyberspace security. He was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 2001. Dr. Zhao and his team have received numerous awards in recognition of their research contributions, including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the IEEE Technical Committee on Parallel and Distributed Systems. Recently the President of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences awarded Prof. Zhao an Honorary Doctorate on behalf of a group of 12 Portuguese universities.

Between 2005 and 2007, Dr. Zhao served as the Director for the Division of Computer and Network Systems at the U.S. National Science Foundation. During his tenure with the NSF, his division initiated several research programs such as GENI, CPS, and C-Path that have been critical for transforming research and development in the field of computer and network systems.

Dr. Zhao completed his undergraduate program in Physics at Shaanxi Normal University, China, in 1977. In 1982, he enrolled in our Department as the first graduate student from the People's Republic of China. He completed his Masters and Ph.D. degree programs in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in only three and half years.

 

Michael Zyda

Michael Zyda is the Director of the GamePipe Laboratory and a Professor of Engineering Practice in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC). At USC Computer Science, he created the B.S. (Games) and M.S. (Game Development) degree programs. From 2000-2004, he was the Founding Director of The MOVES Institute, located at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), and a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at NPS.

Professor Zyda is a pioneer in the fields of computer graphics, networked virtual environments, modeling and simulation, and serious games. He holds a lifetime appointment as a National Associate of the National Academies, which was awarded in 2003 to recognize his extraordinary service to the National Academies. He is also a member of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. He served as the principal investigator and development director of the America's Army PC game, which led to three million plus registered players and transformed Army recruiting.

Professor Zyda has chaired or was a member of many National Research Council (NRC) Board Committees and Panels. He has been a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Computers & Graphics, and a Senior Editor for the MIT Press journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

Dr. Zyda received a B.A. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego in 1976, an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1978, and a D.Sc. in Computer Science from Washington University at St. Louis in 1984.