Speaker Bios
Jennifer Baird, President and CEO, Accuri Cytometers
Jennifer Baird is the company leader and has primary responsibility for strategic
management, fund raising, and human resources; she also co-manages collaborators
and manufacturing partners. She received her MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School
of Management, where she shared Top-of-Class honors. Baird has led teams of technology
developers, process improvement and sales/marketing groups generating significant
cost savings, new products and sales for her clients and employers. As a vice president
at Keane Consulting Group she helped build the company as it quintupled in size
to over 150 staff and managed over $10M in projects. At ISSYS Sensing Systems, Inc
(MI), Baird led fundraising, marketing/sales, business development, grant proposal
writing, public relations, regulatory affairs, human resources, and product development.
S. Ann Becker, Professor, Management Information Systems
and Computer Science,
Director, National Center for Small Business Information, Florida Institute of Technology
Dr. S. Ann Becker is a professor of management information systems and computer science
and the director of the National Center for Small Business Information at Florida
Institute of Technology. Becker has extensive experience in teaching, research,
and consulting in electronic commerce, database technologies, Web and handheld usability,
and software engineering. She has a MBA, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in information systems
from the University of Maryland, College Park. Becker has over 100 publications,
and her research has been supported by Texas Instruments, IBM, the National Science
Foundation, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Alzheimer's Association, and the
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. She has been awarded over $1.5 million
in research grants as principal or co-principal investigator. Becker is also an
associate editor of several journals.
Jim Brennan, TestPartner Product Manager, Compuware
Corporation
Jim Brennan received his bachelor's degree in history from Kalamazoo College and
a master's degree in information, management, and communication from Walsh College
in Troy, Michigan. Brennan has worked at Compuware in a
variety of roles for the past decade, and currently serves as product manager for
Compuware's TestPartner software.
Laurie Kantner, Vice President of Client Services,
Tec-Ed, Inc.
As Tec-Ed's vice president of client services, Laurie Kantner is responsible for
successful delivery of all user-centered research and design work commissioned by
clients. Kantner manages Tec-Ed's user experience staff members across the country.
She has over 30 years in the field of improving user experience with technology,
with 15 years as a usability specialist and 30 years in technical communication.
Kantner has presented case studies at conferences of the Usability Professionals'
Association and ACM SIGCHI. She is co-author of the chapter “Estimating a User-Centered
Design Effort” in the recently published casebook, User-Centered Design Stories:
Real-World UCD Case Studies.
Shane Lovellette, User Experience Product Manager,
TechSmith Corporation
Shane Lovellette is the product manager for TechSmith's user experience products,
including Morae and UserVue. He came to TechSmith with over eight years of management
and production experience in video and television.
In 2004, Lovellette helped TechSmith introduce Morae, the first all-digital software
solution for usability testing, followed in 2006 by the launch of UserVue, the first
Web application for remote user testing.
In addition to spearheading the strategic product roadmap and promotion of Morae
and UserVue, Lovellette collaborates with the development team to ensure customers'
feature requests and concerns are addressed in every new release.
Lovellette holds a bachelor's degree in television, radio, and film production from
Syracuse University and a MBA from Michigan State University.
Sumanth Muthyala, Usability Engineer-Technical Lead,
Compuware Corporation
Sumanth Muthyala joined
Compuware Corporation's Usability and Interaction Design team in February, 2001.
He has been involved with design of Windows and Web based applications since the
beginning of his tenure. Muthyala has extensive experience in user centered design.
He has conducted field studies and usability assessments, and created prototypes,
styleguides, and stylesheets. He created and documented the detailed design specification
for the award winning version of TestPartner and has been working with the product
group since September, 2005. Muthyala holds a master's degree in industrial engineering
and a bachelor's degree in instrumentation engineering. For his master's degree,
he specialized in human factors, usability testing, design of human computer systems,
design and analysis of human-machine systems, and qualitative and quantitative experimental
design and analysis methods. He also gained a theoretical grounding in human factors
and usability testing methods. He is an active member of UPA, ACM SIG-CHI, and the
Human Factors and the Ergonomics Society.
Janine A. Purcell, Cognitive Engineer, VHA Bar Code
Resource Office
Janine Purcell works as the cognitive engineer for the Veterans Health Administration
(VHA) Bar Code Resource Office. Her Veterans Affairs (VA) career started at the
VA National Center for Patient Safety, where she contributed to usability and patient
safety initiatives involving software and product design. Purcell has worked for
over 20 years in commercial and research settings, principally in the field of human-computer
interaction. She holds a B.A. in linguistics from the University of California at
Berkeley and a M.S. in industrial engineering and operations research, with a concentration
in cognitive human factors, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Ergin Salih, TestPartner Development Team Lead, Compuware
Corporation
Ergin Salih has been working in the application automation and testing field for
nearly 20 years. He has been directly involved with the development of the TestPartner
product for over eight years, and he is one of the original architects for the latest
version. Salih started his career as a mechanical engineer working for Babcock Power
Ltd. in the United Kingdom. He earned his TEC Higher Certificate in mechanical engineering
from Acton Technical College in London. After completing his apprenticeship, he
joined the Engineering Project Planning department as a project planner. He had
the opportunity to move to the company's IS department and eventually left to join
Direct Technology Ltd. who were pioneers in application automation and testing with
the products Automator Mi2 and Automator QA. He spent over eight years as a consultant
and trainer, solving automation and testing problems for customers, before joining
the development team as a developer and then a team leader. Originally from London,
England, Salih now lives in southeast Michigan.
Richard Sheridan, President, Menlo Innovations
As President of Menlo Innovations, Rich Sheridan, along with co-founders, formed
a company around the passions of building great software and great software teams.
Sheridan has sponsored dramatic changes to existing teams using techniques from
many sources, including Extreme Programming and The 5th Discipline. He
has focused on improving the culture, productivity and results of teams with which
he works. His experiences as the vice president of R&D at Interface Systems
were captured in the book Creativity at Work by Jeff DeGraff and Katherine
Lawrence of the University of Michigan Business School. The book came at a time
when Interface Systems was named the #1 public company in Michigan. Sheridan is
a graduate of the University of Michigan where he received a B.S. in computer science
and a master's degree in computer engineering.
Sheridan has focused his attention and energy on the power of open and collaborative
work spaces as originally practiced by Thomas Edison. Edison's lab in Menlo Park,
New Jersey was the inspiration for the company name. The dramatic success of Menlo,
during one of the hardest times for the information technology industry, captured
the attention of Forbes magazine, where Sheridan appeared on the cover
in May, 2003. Menlo Innovations was named to the Inc 500 list of fastest growing
private firms in 2007.
An excellent speaker and presenter, Sheridan readily shares his knowledge and successes
from real-world experience. He is now scheduled to be a guest lecturer at the University
of Michigan Business School.
Jason Withrow, Business Analyst, University of Michigan
Health System Faculty, Washtenaw Community College
Jason Withrow is currently a business analyst for the University of Michigan Health
System and teaches user experience and Web development courses in the Internet Professional
program at Washtenaw Community College. He holds master's degrees in psychology
and information, and has eight years of experience in the Web development industry.
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