UsabilityNJ
The New Jersey UPA Chapter
World Usability Day - Speaker Bios
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Below are brief biographies and background information on the speakers for the World Usability Day Celebration in NJ on Thursday, November 13, 2008.
Bill Neary - Invited Speaker
Bill Neary brings both an extensive knowledge of municipal government, vision and leadership skills to the offices of Keep Middlesex Moving (KMM) as the Executive Director. Raised in Old Bridge, Bill moved to California with this wife. But the couple missed the changing seasons and their family, so the Nearys' returned to New Jersey settling in East Brunswick. Bill honed his marketing and sales skills at Franklin College. His entrepreneurial spirit took hold and Bill opened Dairy Queens in Middlesex County and central New Jersey. After many years of serving not only ice cream, but lessons in responsibility and ethics to each of his employees, Bill sold his last Dairy Queen in 2003.
Politics and government were favorite dinner discussions in the Neary household. On a dare from his son, Adam, Bill submitted his resume to fill a seat on the East Brunswick Township Council in 1995 which he won. Next, Bill ran for Mayor and again won. During Bill's 12 year tenure as Chief Executive, East Brunswick has made great strides in smart growth and land use preservation. In 2008, with the blessing of his wife and son, Bill made the difficult decision not to run for an additional mayoral term but rather focus his energies his work at KMM.
In the brief time that Bill has led as Executive Director, KMM has received accolades for its innovating shuttle programming, helped bring a possible Bike Station to fruition in down town New Brunswick and awarded municipalities with small grants to fund projects that compliment KMM's missions and goals.
Tom is the Executive Director of the US DHS National Center of Excellence for Port Security, Deputy Director, Center for Maritime Systems, and Research Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ocean Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ.
Gloria Villalobos and Laura Venner are veteran NASA JPL Solar System Ambassadors. Gloria is the Director of the Novins Planetarium at Ocean County College in Toms River, New Jersey. Venner who holds a science degree from Columbia University, is the astronomy educator for a local science center.
Steve Ellis is a Senior User Experience Consultant with The KOHL Group, a consulting firm specializing in the technical and business aspects of telecommunications and related industries. Steve has over 25 years experience applying user-centered design principles to improve the effectiveness and ease of use of telecommunications products and online business applications. In addition, he has designed user interfaces for several network management applications for both circuit-switched and IP-based networks. His most recent work involves GUI design and evaluation for web-based network performance tools that optimize the routing of packet-based traffic in large IP networks.
Prior to joining KOHL, Steve had career experience with Bell Laboratories - at both AT&T and Lucent Technologies - and Avaya, where he did hands-on work and managed groups responsible for user-centered design, usability testing, user interface prototyping, requirements definition and process reengineering. He was awarded the prestigious position of "Consulting Member of Technical Staff" at Bell Laboratories for his significant long-term contributions in product design and process improvement.
Steve earned his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and his B.S. in Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University. He has written several papers and delivered professional presentations in the areas of Cognitive Psychology, Eye Gaze Tracking and Usability Engineering, and has a patent pending for a Distributed Measurement System Configurator Tool.
Jeff Kashinsky - Panelist
Jeff has been at NYC Transit since August 2007 as a Project Lead working in Systems Engineering. A major part of his responsibility is assuring that the output from the Systems Engineering group takes into account not only technical requirements but also meets the users' needs.
Before joining NYCT, Jeff was Director, Network Engineering, for a wireless data company where he was responsible for the design of both the RF network and the wired infrastructure. He has worked in broadcast video and medical electronics in Design Systems Engineering and Project Management roles, and he has designed computers ranging from large mainframes down to personal computers.
Jeff has a BSEE and MSEE from Drexel and Northeastern respectively.
Dr. Mammone is the Associate Vice President of Corporate Liaison, Director of CAIP, Director of the BEST Institute and a Rutgers University Professor with a joint appointment in the Rutgers Business School and the School of Engineering. He serves as an interface between industry and Rutgers University by coordinating various events, web sites and projects that combine business and technology interests into useful enterprises. The BEST Institute is primarily concerned with starting new companies based on Rutgers intellectual property (IP). The CAIP center provides Cyber infrastructure platforms to industry and academic agencies. Dr. Mammone’s research interests are in computational pattern recognition and in the processes involved in the innovation of new technological products and their impact within their value chain. He has published over 150 papers and four books, supervised many graduate students and serves as consultant to many industrial and government agencies.