Speakers

Kate Alcott has been the Associate Director of the Northeast Advanced Technological Education Center (NEATEC) at State University of New York (SUNY) Polytechnic Institute for the past 7 years and was recently promoted to the Director of Workforce Programs for the college. NEATEC, a National Science Foundation funded project, with a mission to build a semiconductor and nanotechnology technician workforce for New York has been researching effective outreach and training approaches for the past decade. Prior to joining NEATEC, Ms. Alcott worked in the Continuing Professional Education Department at SUNY Poly spearheading Manufacturing Day events, STEM outreach activities, entrepreneurship competitions and non-matriculated student engagement. While at NEATEC, she has responded to employers’ requests for veteran talent by developing a Department of Defense SkillBridge program called Vet S.T.E.P. (Semiconductor Training & Experience Program). Ms. Alcott considers working with the military population an honor and a privilege. Her employer partners agree and are eager to see this talented military pipeline grow.

Eric Batten is the Workforce Development Manager for Texas Instruments. In his role, he is focused on building and expanding programs for students to be highly qualified to work in the most technologically advanced manufacturing facilities in the world. He has been at TI for 17 years, spending most of his career in Education Technology, while moving to the Talent Acquisition team a year ago. Some of his favorite projects include:

• Developing partnerships with school districts, community college and universities to expand STEM college opportunities for underrepresented and underserved populations around the country. 
• Collaborating with school districts, community colleges and universities to develop winning grant applications around STEM access and success. 
• Expanding Career and Technical Education (CTE) to strengthen pathways for students into STEM careers – especially under-represented populations in engineering and advanced manufacturing. 

Dr. Peter Bermel leads the Energy & Nanophotonics research group at Purdue University that leverages nanophotonics to improve the performance of photovoltaics, thermophotovoltaics, and secure electronics. He has served as the PI for two multi-million dollar centers in secure electronics: ASSURE and SCALE, and a total of 35 awards from major research sponsors, such as the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Energy, the Semiconductor Research Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, NEC Corporation, the Purdue Research Foundation, Indiana Innovation Institute, and the US Army. He is a recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, a Winston Churchill Foundation Scholarship, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, an MIT Compton Fellowship, and the Elmore Named Associate Professor Position. Dr. Bermel is widely published in scientific peer-reviewed journals, and has been cited over 8,900 times, for an h-index of 37. His work is a recurring topic in publications geared towards the general public, including the Economist and the Washington Post – most recently, for his work on defense microelectronics workforce development.

Cory Forbes is Chair, Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction, Fenton Wayne Robnett Endowed Professor of Science Education, and Director of the STEM Education Research Collaboratorium and Resource Center in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Arlington. Forbes holds a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and M.S. in Science Education from the University of Kansas and M.S. in Natural Resources and Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Michigan. His teaching and research efforts focus on STEM education in K-12 and undergraduate STEM contexts. He directs multiple externally-funded projects involving STEM curriculum development, assessment design and testing, professional development for K-12 STEM teachers, and classroom-based research on STEM teaching and learning that are based in regional, national, and international partnerships with education researchers, STEM faculty, K-12 teachers, and stakeholders. Forbes is a NARST Early Career Research Awardee and Fulbright Faculty Scholar.

Marco A. López, Jr. currently serves as the CEO of Intermestic Partners, an international business advisory and investment group that invests in, develops, and manages a wide portfolio of international projects to maximize client impact across borders.

In March of 2021, Marco ran for governor of Arizona, becoming the 4th Latino to successfully be placed on a major party nominating ballot in Arizona’s history. Marco ran for governor because he believes in the Promise of Arizona – the promise that if you work hard and treat people with respect then Arizona is a place where you can make it. It’s this idea that led Marco’s parents to immigrate to Arizona from Mexico nearly fifty years ago. They didn’t start out with much, but they dreamed that Marco and his sisters could do better than they did.

That’s just what happened – they pushed Marco to get good grades in school so that he and his sisters could be the first generation in their family to go to college. Once Marco graduated from the University of Arizona, he knew he had to give back, so at just 21 years old he ran for mayor of his hometown of Nogales and won becoming one of the youngest mayors in the country. After winning two mayoral elections, Governor Napolitano asked Marco to serve at the state level as Director of the Arizona Department of Commerce where he oversaw critical trade relationships in the state.
Next, Marco was appointed to serve at the national level in the Obama Administration as chief of staff at Customs and Border Protection, where he oversaw a $13 billion budget and 60,000 people. In 2011, Marco left the administration to start his own small business in Arizona just like his parents had done 40 years before. Over the past ten years, Marco’s work has connected 1 million low-income families to high-speed internet in the US, and inAZ, his entrepreneurship is on track to create 16,000 jobs.

Marco Lopez ran for governor because he believes the Promise of Arizona is still possible, but for too many people in Arizona today it’s out of reach. Marco continues to use his leadership experience in the private and public sectors to make that promise of opportunity that brought his parents to Arizona a reality for everyone.

Marco has served as a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, the Nature Conservancy Conservation & Public Policy Committee, the U.S. Department of Commerce Arizona District Export Council, and sits on numerous advisory boards for both private and public organizations.
Marco serves as Senior Advisor to the Carlos Slim Foundation, focusing on the Foundation’s U.S. efforts on digital inclusion, vocational education, and economic development.

Emily McGrath is the Director of Workforce Development, Education, and Training at NextFlex, a Manufacturing Innovation Institute under the Manufacturing USA Program. She has a diverse background that includes experience across government, industry, and education. Prior to working at NextFlex, Emily was the Executive Director of a workforce development non-profit for Veterans focused on helping Transitioning Service Members translate specialized training in military technologies to skills needed by the private sector. Emily also worked as a GIS Analyst for the Department of Energy; managed policy campaigns for the Environmental Defense Fund; co-founded and launched an ecotourism-based start up with a small community of Civil War Veterans in El Salvador; and created education and training courses for rural communities in the Brazilian Amazon. Emily sits on San Jose’s (CA) Workforce Investment Board where she helps inform strategic investment and policy around workforce development for the Silicon Valley region, and she attended Colgate University and Portland State University, where she holds degrees in Geography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Ted Moise earned a B.S. degree in Physics and Engineering from Trinity College, Hartford, CT, in 1987.  In 1992, he earned a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Yale University and was awarded the Harding Bliss Prize for excellence in Engineering and AppliedScience.  Ted joined TI in 1992 where he was responsible for the development of high-performance quantum-effect devices and circuits and served as program manager for several DARPA-sponsored projects.  In 1997, Ted started work on the development of scaled ferroelectric capacitors leading to the first demonstration of low-voltage, high-density, embedded ferroelectric random-access memory.  Since achieving FRAM production on the 130nm node in 2007, TI and its partners have designed and sold FRAM-based products with applications ranging from implantable medical devices to ultra-low-power micro-controllers and automotive data recorders.  From 2007-2018, Ted led technology development teams focusing on non-volatile memory, high-performance analog CMOS, high-performance/low-noise BiCMOS, and sensor technology.  From 2018 to 2021, Ted managed TI’s advanced electrical failure analysis and physical failure analysis laboratories.  After retiring from Texas Instruments in 2021, Ted joined the University of Texas at Dallas as a Research Scientist.  Ted also serves as the director of the North Texas Semiconductor Institute.

As a member of the executive leadership team at the National Science Foundation (NSF), Dr. James L. Moore III is the Assistant Director for the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU). With an annual budget of over $1 Billion and personnel oversight for nearly 200 employees, he serves as the senior leader for EDU, which supports science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) projects focusing on K-12 education, undergraduate and graduate education, workforce and human resource development, and learning in formal and informal settings. Prior to his NSF appointment, Dr. Moore served, for over five years, as the university’s vice provost for diversity and inclusion, chief diversity officer, and leader of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (one of the nation’s oldest, largest, and most comprehensive office of its kind) at The Ohio State University. From 2015 to 2017, he served as a program director for Broadening Participation in Engineering in the Directorate for Engineering at NSF, and, during that time, he was one of the program directors who helped launch the highly acclaimed, cross-directorate, NSF INCLUDES, a $100 million plus national broadening participation in STEM initiative. From 2011 to 2015, he was an associate provost for diversity and inclusion at The Ohio State University, where he managed numerous nationally-acclaimed programs and units.

Dr. Moore is nationally-recognized for his work on African American males, and he has served on The Ohio State University’s faculty, since 2002. He is the first executive director for the Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male and is the inaugural EHE Distinguished Professor of Urban Education at The Ohio State University. His research agenda focuses on school counseling, gifted education, urban education, higher education, multicultural education/counseling, and STEM education, and Dr. Moore is often quoted, featured, and mentioned in popular publications, such as the New York Magazine, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Columbus Dispatch, Spartanburg Herald, Cincinnati Enquirer, Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.Since 2018, he has been cited annually by Education Week as one of the 200 most influential scholars and researchers in the United States.

Dr. Moore has co-edited and co-authored seven books: (a) African American Students in Urban Schools: Critical Issues and Solutions for Achievement; (b) African American Male Students in PreK-12 Schools: Informing Research, Policy, and Practice; (c) Black Males and Intercollegiate Athletics: An exploration of Problems and Solutions; (d) Advancing Educational Outcomes in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics at Historically Black Colleges and Universities; (e) Gifted Children of Color Around the World: Diverse Needs, Exemplary Practices and Directions for the Future; (f) Black Boys are Lit: Engaging PreK-3 Gifted and Talented Black Boys Using Multicultural Literature and Ford’s Bloom-Banks Matrix; and (g) African American Young Girls and Women in PreK12 Schools and Beyond: Informing Research, Policy, and Practice. Further, he has published over 160 publications; obtained over $40 million in grants, contracts, and gifts; and given over 200 scholarly presentations and lectures throughout the United States and other parts of the world (e.g., Dominican Republic, Brazil, Bermuda, Bahamas, Jamaica, Canada, England, Spain, China, India, Indonesia, Ireland, and France).

Prof. Manuel Quevedo is Professor and Department Head in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Quevedo has published more than 320 papers, 4 book chapters, and holds 15 US patents with 8 more pending. His current research includes nanostructured materials and devices for large area sensors and harsh environments. His research is supported by the The National Science Foundation (NSF), The Air Force Office of Sponsored Research (AFOSR), Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA), Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), Conacyt, Department of Homeland Security, Texas Instruments, CERFE labs, among others.

Education:

• KEDGE Business School, Marseille, France – Sales Management
• Grenoble IAE, Graduate School in Management, France –Master in Strategic Human Resources

Experience in the Semiconductor Industry:

• Applied Materials, based in France – 4 years –HR Representative
• Texas Instruments, successively based in France, China, USA – 12 years –Successively HR Director for France, China R&D and Sales, then US Manufacturing HRBP
• Qorvo, based in TX, USA – 1.5 years –Director, HR Business Partner for Global Operations

Dr. Veronique Vien Tran joined Dallas College in 2020 as the the founding Vice Provost of the School of Manufacturing & Industrial Technology (MIT). She partners with internal and external stakeholders to build the School of MIT to meet the workforce needs in North Texas through innovative training programs in areas such as Manufacturing, Engineering Technology, Mechatronics, Robotics and Automation, Logistics and Design, Advanced Automotive Technology, and Construction Sciences.

After coming to America as a child refugee from Vietnam, Dr. Tran was the first in her family to graduate high school, attend community college (Lone Star – North Harris), graduate from a university (University of Houston) and attain a doctorate degree (UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and UT Arlington), and complete a Post-doctoral Fellowship (Yale University).  She earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering.  Dr. Tran’s breadth of experience began as an engineer in the energy industry, followed by several years as a biomedical researcher and professor.  For the past 20 years, Dr. Tran has served as a higher education leader at both the community college and university levels. Dr. Tran was selected as an Aspen Presidential Fellow in 2019 and is committed to being an agent of change to open doors for all students.

Dr. Annie Wright is the Executive Director for Southern Methodist University’s Center on Research and Evaluation (CORE). She is a Clinical Community psychologist and a program evaluator. Her expertise is in the planning, implementation and evaluation of K-12 educational programming. She works with a range of educational settings, including districts, schools, and out of school time non-profits. She has a particular interest in the work of community coalitions focused on educational reform and systems level change. Dr. Wright pays particular attention to both community and implementation science principles in order to inform effective programming. Within educational settings, her content expertise covers social & emotional learning, technology as a pedagogical tool, afterschool and STEM programming, pre-kindergarten programs, and programming within museums and other informal learning settings.