Plenary Speakers
October 23—Opening Plenary Session
Karen Marrongelle is the Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR). She leads the EHR directorate in supporting research that enhances learning and teaching to achieve excellence in U.S. science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Prior to joining NSF, Marrongelle was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Portland State University and professor of Mathematics and Statistics, where she oversaw 24 departments and programs across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. In addition to her work as dean, Marrongelle has served as a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Portland State University since 2001. Prior to her appointment as dean, she held positions as the vice chancellor for academic strategies and assistant vice chancellor for academic standards and collaboration with the Oregon University System. From 2007 to 2009, Marrongelle served on a rotation as a program officer at NSF and led numerous grants, collaborating with researchers nationally and internationally to improve undergraduate mathematics education and K–12 mathematics professional development. Marrongelle has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and philosophy from Albright College, a master’s degree in mathematics from Lehigh University, and a doctorate in mathematics education from the University of New Hampshire.
Victor R. McCrary is the Vice President for Research and Graduate Programs at the University of the District of Columbia. Prior to this position, he was Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and before that the first Vice President for Research and Economic Development at Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD. Previously, he was the Business Area Executive for Science and Technology at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), where he directed investments totaling over $60M for basic and applied research projects targeted for national security and space applications. In 2005, McCrary was selected to the rank of Principal Professional Staff at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He is a former national president of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE), and a Fellow of the American Chemical Society.
McCrary serves on numerous committees including The Intelligence Science and Technology Experts Group of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; the advisory board for electrical and computer engineering at The Citadel, and the advisory board of the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State. He served on the subcommittee for the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) the board of the Maryland Innovation Initiative of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO); and the PubMed Central National Advisory Committee for the National Institutes of Health.
He has authored or co-authored over 60 technical papers and co-edited two books in his career at AT&T Bell Laboratories and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He has received a number of honors and awards during his career. In 2011, he was honored as Scientist of the Year by the Annual Black Engineer of the Year Award-STEM Conference. In 2015 he received the Alumni Award for Research Excellence from the Catholic University of America, and Distinguished Alumni Award by Howard University in 2017.
McCrary was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation, in October 2016.
Paul Osterman is the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Professor of Human Resources and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management as well as a member of the Department of Urban Planning at MIT. From July 2003 to June 2007 he also served as deputy dean at the MIT Sloan School.
His research concerns changes in work organization within companies, career patterns, and processes within firms, economic development, urban poverty, and public policy surrounding skills training and employment programs.
Osterman has been a senior administrator of job training programs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and has consulted widely for government agencies, foundations, community groups, firms, and public interest organizations.
His most recent book is Who Will Care For Us: Long Term Care and the Long Term Workforce (Russell Sage, 2017). Other books include Good Jobs America: Making Work Better for Everyone (Russell Sage, 2011); The Truth About Middle Managers: Who They Are, How They Work, How They Matter (Harvard Business School Press, 2009); Gathering Power: The Future of Progressive Politics in America (Beacon Press, 2003); Securing Prosperity: The American Labor Market: How It Has Changed and What to Do About It (Princeton University Press, 1999), and Working In America: A Blueprint for the New Labor Market (MIT Press, 2001).
Osterman is also the author of Employment Futures: Reorganization, Dislocation, and Public Policy; Getting Started: The Youth Labor Market; The Mutual Gains Enterprise: Forging a Winning Partnership Among Labor, Management, and Government; and Change At Work. He is the editor of two books, Internal Labor Markets and Broken Ladders: Managerial Careers in the New Economy. In addition, he has written numerous academic journal articles and policy issue papers on topics such as labor market policy, the organization of work within firms, careers, job training programs, economic development, and anti-poverty programs.
October 25 – Friday Plenary Session
Charles Fadel is a global education thought leader and futurist, author, and inventor, with several active affiliations. His work spans the continuum of schools, higher education, and workforce development/lifelong learning as the founder and chairman of the Center for Curriculum Redesign (Boston, Massachusetts), focused on “Making Education More Relevant” and answering the question: “What should students learn for the 21st century in an age of Artificial Intelligence?” He is also the founder and president of the Fondation Helvetica Educatio (Geneva, Switzerland); Project Director at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education in the Laboratory for the Science of the Individual exploring “Machine Learning + Human Learning,” and a member of the President’s Council of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.
Through his 25-year high-tech career, he has witnessed firsthand the disruptive effects of exponential change, which gives him a unique perspective he brings to the world of education. Among his past affiliations he served as the Global Education Lead at Cisco Systems; in product marketing and management roles in semiconductors for broadband and wireless applications at Analog Devices and M/A-COM; and as founder of Neurodyne AI, an ahead-of-its-time startup focused on neural networks and artificial intelligence.
Fadel has served as a keynoter/presenter at private, national, and international events for organizations as varied as the World Economic Forum, UNESCO, World Bank, OECD, Google TechTalk, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His most recent, groundbreaking book, Artificial Intelligence in Education, has just been published. His former, highly influential book, Four-Dimensional Education has been translated in 10 languages. He is also the co-author of the best-selling book, 21st Century Skills. He holds a BSEE, an MBA, and seven patents.
Robin Wright currently serves as Director of the Division for Undergraduate Education of the National Science Foundation. She is at NSF on a temporary assignment from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Biology Teaching and Learning, for which she was the founding head. She previously served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the College of Biological Sciences and as professor of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development.
Prior to focusing exclusively on undergraduate education research and development, her lab used genetic, cell biological, ecological, and evolutionary approaches to explore cold adaptation, using baker’s yeast as a model organism. Her laboratory was known as a great place for undergraduates to pursue research and she has mentored nearly 100 undergraduate researchers over the past 27 years. At University of Minnesota, she helped to develop and co-teaches the Nature of Life orientation program and has been a leader in development of Foundations of Biology, an innovative, team-based introductory biology course for biological sciences majors. She has led HHMI- and NSF-supported initiatives to deliver discovery-based research experience to the thousands of majors and non-majors who take biology classes in the College of Biological Sciences each year.
Wright served on the Education Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology and as chair of the Education Committee for the Genetics Society of America. She was a senior editor of Life Science Education, and is the founding editor-in-chief of a new biology curriculum journal called CourseSource. She was a member of the Executive Committee for the HHMI/National Academies of Sciences-sponsored Summer Institute on Biology Education and the National Academies Scientific Teaching Alliance. During this work, she was named as a National Academies Biology Education Mentor for 14 consecutive years. She was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received the Elizabeth Jones Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education from the Genetics Society of America.