Panelists

Tamara Armstrong
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Loyola Marymount University

Tamara Armstrong is a dynamic leader and collaborator with a broad range of expertise in higher education information services. VP Armstrong served previously as the associate vice chancellor and CIO for the Los Rios Community College District, where she was a bold and effective advocate for students, facilitating the use of technology to bolster student access and completion through the redesign of student experiences and the mitigation of digital equity issues. She was responsible for information technology strategy, security, programs, policy, and systems serving over 75,000 students, 6,000 faculty and staff, four colleges, and 22 facilities. VP Armstrong built robust relationships with leadership, students (both current and prospective), faculty, staff, alumni, academic senates, and unions to align and transform IT activities in support of college and districtwide goals.

Before working in higher education, VP Armstrong was deputy director with the California Department of Technology, providing consultation and direction to state executives, project sponsors, and project teams from 150+ independent state departments to implement IT initiatives. She oversaw a $4 billion IT project portfolio of the state’s largest, most complex projects, and she led the statewide functions of IT project management, procurement, project approval, and oversight in support of state departments. VP Armstrong has also served as executive director for the California statewide project management office; project director for California’s financial information system; a partner business executive with the State Controller’s Office; chief information security officer for the Department of Child Support Services; and project manager and IT manager for the State Teachers Retirement System.

Gipson Bachman
President, Graduate Students of Loyola Marymount University (GSLMU)

Gipson, pronounced like the guitar, is a proud member of both @LMUCBA and @LMUSeaver as a dual MBA/M.S. in Computer Science candidate. L.A.-native and self-proclaimed “work-in-progress,” he currently serves as this year’s graduate student body president and is proud to create a culture of belonging amongst our diverse student population university-wide. Gipson is also incredibly honored to be a @ReachingOutMBA fellow recognizing the best and brightest in future LGBT+ business leadership from prominent business school’s across the globe. 

In professional life, Gipson’s background is in strategic organic-driven marketing across a broad range of categories - automotive (Toyota, Ford), CPG (P&G) and the public sector (City of Los Angeles). He looks to leverage this experience and the skills he’s learned at LMU to solve problems in the marketing tech stack.  For example, his capstone project focused on creating an intuitive search platform where marketers can easily find social media influencers using extended search parameters (like body type and skin tone, among others) to ensure inclusivity in their digital campaigns.

Matt Christopher
Competitive and Market Intelligence Lead, Zoom

Matt has spent his entire career at the intersection of business and technology, working with and for technology leaders like Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, Microsoft, and Zoom. In various roles, he served as a technology consultant for firms in a variety of fields, including Creative Artists Agency, Dole, John Deere, Amgen, Herman Miller, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank, among others.  As the Market Intelligence Lead at Zoom, he spends his days understanding the market for enterprise communications and collaboration.

He has worked with companies with solutions that touch cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies.  He has led transformation initiatives to help companies transition to SaaS model and to leverage technology to modernize business processes for efficiency and other competitive differentiation.

Matt is a strong advocate for cross-functional fluency between business and technology.  Business-minded professionals must understand technology to the extent it impacts business processes and opportunities.  Likewise, technology-minded professionals should understand if, and how, their innovations impact their own business or the businesses of potential customers and articulate that value.

Matt received his bachelor’s degree in International Business from The George Washington University and his MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. 

Nathan Corkhill
Science Instructor, St. John Bosco High School

Nate Corkhill currently teaches at St. John Bosco High School as the Director of the Computer Science Pathway and as a Science Teacher. He graduated from SJB in 2009 and then attended UCLA where he majored in Geography/Environmental Science. He then continued his education at Loyola Marymount University to earn his Teaching Credential and Masters of Education. Nate has been back at the Bosco campus teaching and coaching since 2014. He loves to work with educational technology and has built a successful computer science curriculum at his alma mater.

 

 

 

  

Aarde Cosseboom
CEO & Founder, Clariti

For the last 2 decades Aarde's professional experience has been in the Contact Center world, helping businesses support their consumers through cloud-based technologies. He enjoys working with large global customer service teams to increase customer experience, customer loyalty, operations, customer service. Aarde is the author of 'Enable Better Service: A Customer Service Contact Center Story of Breaking Away from the Norm Through Creativity, Technology and Innovation'. Available on Amazon.

 

 

 

  

 

Colin Doyle, J.D.
Associate Professor of Law, LMU Loyola Law School 

Colin Doyle joined the Loyola Law School faculty in 2022. His research examines the relationship between criminal law, race, and emerging technology, particularly machine learning and artificial intelligence. Some of his work explores how overlooked features of new technology can challenge longstanding beliefs and practices within constitutional law, criminal law, and criminal procedure. Other research critiques traditional frameworks of authority in automated legal systems, exploring how machine learning could be used to study and surveil the powerful rather than the marginalized. He has a particular focus on decisions at the periphery of criminal adjudication, including bail setting and fees and fines determinations.

His scholarship has appeared in the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and the Duke Law Journal Online. His research has been cited in federal and state court decisions, including the California Supreme Court's landmark decision, In re Humphrey, that found the state's money bail practices to be unconstitutional. Doyle also writes about law and technology for a broader public audience with his work appearing in The New York Times, The Appeal, and the New York Law Journal.

Before becoming a law professor, Colin Doyle was a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School and worked as a staff attorney at the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as articles chair for the Harvard Law Review.

Elizabeth A. Drummond, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History, Loyola Marymount University

Elizabeth Drummond is Associate Professor of History, Director of the Single-Subject Teacher Preparation Program in Social Science (History), and affiliated faculty in the Jewish Studies and Women's & Gender Studies. She earned her Ph.D. at Georgetown University, where she studied with Roger Chickering.

Professor Drummond is a social and cultural historian of modern Central Europe, with a focus on national identity, nationalist mobilization, and the experience of national conflict in the German-Polish borderlands. She has published a number of articles on the German-Polish national conflict in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including on the role of women in nationalist mobilization and the gendering of nationalism, on the position of Jews in the German-Polish national conflict, on the imagery and symbols employed by German and Polish nationalists in the construction of nationalist identities, on migration in and out of Poznania, and on the problem of Poznań/Posen as a transnational city. Her current research projects include a book project entitled "Flashpoint Poznania: How Nationalists Mobilized a German-Polish Borderland before the First World War" and a new project on the artist Max Thalmann. Professor Drummond teaches broadly in modern European and world history, including First-Year Seminars on the First World War and on the Holocaust; lower-division courses in world history, environmental history, and modern European history; and upper-division courses in modern Germany, European imperialism, gender history, popular culture, and public history.

Professor Drummond has served as chair (2017-2021) and associate chair (2016-2017) of the Department of History, as president of the LMU Faculty Senate (2015-2017, with an additional year on the Faculty Senate Executive, 2017-2018), and as chair of the BCLA College Council (2018-2020). She is a member of the team that founded and maintains the interdisciplinary digital project the German Studies Collaboratory, as well as co-founder and co-coordinator of the German Studies Association's Teaching Network. She also serves on the board of the Central European History Society.

Mingyu Feng, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate, WestEd

Mingyu Feng, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Associate in the Learning and Technology content area at WestEd. She leads educational technology research projects in K-12. Her research focuses on using innovative computing technologies to improve student learning and teacher instruction. She has extensive experience working on research and development of digital learning systems. Dr. Feng also specializes in educational data mining and has analyzed large amounts of online learning data to discover student learning patterns and to help improve learning and instruction.

Funders of her work include the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation. Currently she is leading several complex, multi-institutional evaluation projects. Feng has published over 50 articles at international conferences and in academic journals. Dr. Feng earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Stephen Fromkin
Co-founder and Chief Content Officer, Talespin

Stephen Fromkin is the co-founder and Chief Content Officer at Talespin, an enterprise software solutions company that leverages immersive technology to transform the way global workforces learn, train, and collaborate. At Talespin, Stephen leads strategy and operations across new business, marketing, financial, and content production units.

Stephen has more than 20 years of experience in innovative technology, Hollywood content production and business leadership. He produced thousands of hours of media prior to turning his focus on immersive content (VR, AR and MR) for training, promotional, and entertainment purposes to service the needs of Fortune 100 organizations, professional sports leagues and more. Stephen received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark University and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production from Boston University.

Trent Johnson
Chief Strategy Officer, Cie

Trent Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer at Cie, a venture studio, has worked in the world of digital innovation and transformation since the dot-com era, witnessing the rapid growth of technology from the early day of his career. Trent’s experiences in leading innovation span various sectors, from global brands to private equity firms, and range from early-stage startups to giant enterprise companies in industries such as financial services, healthcare, consumer electronics, real estate, retail, and the public sector.

In his current role at Cie, Trent oversees digital strategy and operational enablement for Cie’s corporate partners and venture portfolio.  Leveraging a team of business builders, Trent’s team analyses industries for opportunities, envisions, prototypes, tests, validates, builds, and scales digital ventures and products on behalf of strategic partners and investors.

Trent arrived at Cie through a collaboration with Wavemaker Partners where Trent served as an Executive-in-Residence for Wavemaker portfolio companies in the US and Southeast Asia.  Prior to Cie and Wavemaker, Trent was a Client Partner and Practice Director for Slalom. At Slalom, his dual remit was the growth of strategic client accounts within Southern California, and the practice direction of the Strategy & Operations, and Business Advisory practices.

Just prior to Slalom, Trent was a Partner and Senior Advisor at Avasant (a spinoff of law firm Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth) and ISG respectively.  Both firms, noted leaders in globalization and strategic sourcing advisory.   Earlier in his career, Trent founded a management consultancy with former colleagues of KPMG Consulting focused on operations consulting, early-stage venture capital due diligence and systems integration for public and private sectors in the US Gulf South. 

While at KPMG Consulting, Trent focused on Internet Business and Corporate Incubation solutions for clients including: European banks such as ING and ABN Amro, to Silicon Valley tech firms and financial services concerns such as E*Trade, Invesco and Visa.  Trent began his post-graduate career with Citibank in the development of an asset-backed securitization technology which enabled serial, asset-backed securitization offerings totaling over $350 million USD.

Trent received his MBA from the University of Northern Iowa, where he was on the Dean’s List, and his BS in Business Administration and Economics from Southern University of New Orleans. He currently serves on the board of Innovate@UCLA, a 40-year-old membership organization comprised of Southern California tech executives and innovators. Trent is an active member of his community in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife, Ana Sofia and their three children.

Vandana (Ana) Mangal, Ph.D.
Clinical Associate Professor of Information Systems and Business Analytics, LMU College of Business Administration

Professor Vandana (Ana) Mangal's academic experience includes working at UCLA Anderson School of Management, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, and, Wisconsin School of Business, UW-Madison. At Pepperdine, she was Innovation Advisor to the Dean’s leadership team for strategic initiatives including program innovation and integration of 4IR (fourth industrial revolution) technologies. At UCLA, she led curriculum strategy, growth and corporate relations as Executive Director for the Easton Technology Management Center, leading to Easton becoming an endowed center. As a lead researcher in the global BIT (Business and Information Technologies) project, she received grant funding and published four books and several research papers. She has taught courses in Information Systems, Data, and Project Management at UW-Madison and at UCLA. Her industry experience includes Intel Corporation, Tata Group and AE Business Solutions consulting.

Professor Mangal has served as guest editor of a special issue of the International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics, as a reviewer for journals and as external advisor to several Ph.D. students.

Sabba Quidwai, Ed.D.
Founder, Designing Schools

Neil Sahota
Chief Executive Officer, ACSILabs

Neil Sahota (萨冠军) is the CEO of ACSI Labs, United Nations (UN) AI Advisor, IBM Master Inventor, Professor at UC Irvine, and author of award-winning best business book of 2019, Own the A.I. Revolution. With 20+ years of business experience, he works with organizations to create their core business strategy, enter new markets, and develop next generation products/solutions powered by emerging technology. His work experience spans multiple industries including legal services, healthcare, life sciences, retail, travel and transportation, energy and utilities, automotive, telecommunications, media/communication, and government. Moreover, Neil is one of the few people selected for IBM's Corporate Service Corps leadership program that pairs leaders with NGOs to perform community-driven economic development projects. For his assignment, Neil lived and worked in Ningbo, China where he partnered with Chinese corporate CEOs to create a leadership development program.

Neil partners with entrepreneurs to define their products, establish their target markets, and structure their companies. He is a member of several investor groups like the Tech Coast Angels, advises venture capital funds like Miramar and CerraCap, and helped create the UN’s Innovation Factory, a global program for social impact entrepreneurs. Neil also serves as a judge in various startup competitions and mentor in several incubator/accelerator programs. 

He actively pursues social good and volunteers with nonprofits. Neil cofounded the UN's AI for Good Initiative and is actively helping them building out their ecosystem of strategic partnerships. He is currently helping the Zero Abuse Project prevent child sexual abuse as well as Planet Home to engage youth culture in sustainability initiatives. Over the last twelve years, he has served as a Board Director to several non-profit organizations such as the Inteleos and Computing for Humanity as well as corporate boards from around the world like Legalmation, Lingmo, and Shineville.

Shannon Tabaldo
Director, LMU School of Education iDEAL Institute

Shannon N. Tabaldo is the Founding Director of the iDEAL Institute and Director of Digital Curriculum Integration, and Development for the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University. Before coming to LMU, Shannon was the Director of Educational Technology at another California University. She has been a Catholic school classroom teacher, teaching technology to K-8 as well as Junior High Math, and is has been affiliated faculty for ten years in the LMU School of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning. Her courses, Learning and Teaching with Technology and Digital Technology in Urban Education are popular among the intern teacher candidates.

With over 20 years of technology experience and a passion for teaching, she began to see the need for educational technology resources and the need for teacher support and training. Her personal and professional goal is to fulfill the need of training educators on technology that can be used in their classroom for the benefit of student learning and to help develop strong school leaders to disrupt and innovate education.

Shannon is currently researching the impact of blended learning and teacher efficacy and the impact of pandemic pedagogies and their impact on leadership and learning. The iDEAL Institute is studying blended learning in K-12 schools to achieve digital literacy and close the achievement gap. She co-hosts the My Tech Toolbelt Podcast, where she highlights teachers who Innovate, Engage & Inspire using technology in their classrooms. @TabaldoOnTech.

Joel Walsh, Ph.D.
Software Engineer, Privateer

Dr. Joel A Walsh is a machine learning software engineer at Privateer Space. He recently completed a Phd in STEM Education and an M.S. in Computational Science, Engineering and Mathematics at UT Austin. Prior to that he attended the UCLA Teacher Education Program and UC-Davis. Before  returning to graduate school, Joel spent five years teaching mathematics in Locke high school and USC Hybrid high school in Los Angeles. His doctoral research focused on issues of linguistic bias in natural language processing (NLP)-based educational technology, as well as knowledge graph extraction from textbooks using NLP techniques. Before joining Privateer Space he interned at Finetune Learning, where he worked on methods to make large language models produce factual outputs.