2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

1. Dr. Leyla F Conrad Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

   Leyla Conrad is the Director of Outreach in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has been developing and leading programs for undergraduate engineering students, ECE female and minority students, as well as high school students and teachers that supports the ECE’s graduate and undergraduate recruitment and retention efforts. She is also the Education and Diversity Director of the NSF funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Georgia Tech. The Center’s objective is to research fabrication and characterization approaches for the implementation of epitaxial graphene as an electronic material and educate a diverse group of students at all levels in this field. Before her current appointment, she served as the Education Director of the NSF supported research centers: Packaging Research Center (1998-2006) and Center on Materials Devices for IT Research (2006-2008). In both positions, she created and implemented a highly integrated and comprehensive educational program at all levels to meet the educational needs of pre-college, undergraduate, graduate students, and industry engineers. Dr. Conrad received her Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Missouri – Columbia in 1990.

2. Ms. Jill L Auerbach Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

   Auerbach’s expertise is in program evaluation and assessment. Responsible for ABET and SACS reviews in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, she is also the director of the Office of Undergraduate Research in the School. Designing and implementing programs designed to increase student retention and academic engagement is a primary area of specialization.

3. Dr. Ayanna Howard Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

   Ayanna Howard is the Motorola Foundation Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She received her B.S. in Engineering from Brown University, her M.S.E.E. from the University of Southern California, and her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1999. Her area of research is centered around the concept of humanized intelligence, the process of embedding human cognitive capability into the control path of autonomous systems. This work, which addresses issues of autonomous control as well as aspects of interaction with humans and the surrounding environment, has resulted in over 180 peer-reviewed publications in a number of projects – from scientific rover navigation in glacier environments to assistive robots for the home. To date, her unique accomplishments have been highlighted through a number of awards and articles, including highlights in USA Today, Upscale, and TIME Magazine, as well as being named a MIT Technology Review top young innovator of 2003, recognized as NSBE Educator of the Year in 2009, and receiving the Georgia-Tech Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award in 2013. In 2013, she also founded Zyrobotics, which is currently licensing technology derived from her research lab and has released their first suite of educational technology products. From 1993-2005, Dr. Howard was at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Following this, she joined Georgia Tech in July 2005 and founded the Human-Automation Systems Lab. She is currently the Associate Director of Research for the Georgia Tech Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Prior to that, she served as Chair of the multidisciplinary Robotics Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech for three years from 2010-2013.

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