Our Board of Directors
Professor Anjali Sharma
Dr. Anjali Sharma is an Assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Washington State University (WSU), Pullman. Dr. Sharma hails from a small town (Amritsar) in India where she completed her Master’s degree in Applied Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Before joining PhD, she spent around 4 years in pharmaceutical industry in India and gained extensive experience in new drug discovery. She then moved to Canada to earn her PhD in Materials Chemistry from McGill University and completed her postdoctoral training in dendrimer nanomedicine at the Center for Nanomedicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
At Hopkins, Dr. Sharma worked on the development of targeted nanotherapies to address significant healthcare needs in the area of central nervous system disorders. She participated in the development of dendrimer-based drugs that are undergoing human clinical trials. At WSU, Dr. Sharma is leading a Translation Nanomedicines Research Laboratory and her current interdisciplinary research is focused on developing rationally designed and clinically translatable novel nanostructures for selective delivery of therapeutics to cellular and sub-cellular locations across various biological barriers for the treatment of unmet medical needs. The goal of her research is to deliver highly potent drugs in a targeted manner to desired locations in the body to enhance their efficacy and decrease the side-effects. Dr. Sharma has published ~40 scientific articles and is the inventor on 14 patents and disclosures.
Professor Barrett S. Caldwell
Barrett S. Caldwell, PhD is Professor of Industrial Engineering (and Aeronautics & Astronautics, by courtesy) at Purdue. He has a PhD (Univ. of California, Davis, 1990) in Social Psychology, and BS degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and Humanities (MIT, 1985). His research team is the Group Performance Environments Research (GROUPER) Laboratory. GROUPER examines and improves how people get, share, and use information in settings including aviation, critical incident response, healthcare, and spaceflight operations. Prof. Caldwell has been Director and Principal Investigator of the NASA-funded Indiana Space Grant Consortium since 2002. He co-organized the National Academy of Engineering US Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) 2008 session on Cognitive Ergonomics, and has participated in multiple other NASEM service efforts. During 2016-17, Prof. Caldwell was a Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. Department of State, assigned to environment, science, technology and health policy in the Office of Japanese Affairs. He is a Fellow and Past Secretary-Treasurer of the HFES, and was elected to the IISE Council of Fellows in 2022.
From 2020-22, Prof. Caldwell has served on the Purdue Equity Task Force and Implementation Team as a strategic advisor for the West Lafayette campus to address racial inequities facing recruitment, experience, and success of African-Americans at Purdue. For Fall 2022, his efforts as Provost Fellow included work with the Purdue Health Equity Initiative cluster cohort, and investigations of success pathways for Black students, faculty, and staff. From January 1 – May 31, 2022, Prof. Caldwell provided stewardship to the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue as the Interim Head. He currently serves as the chair of the Board of Advisors for the national Students for Exploration and Development of Space organization (SEDS-USA), and a member of the Board of Advisors for STEM for Development.
Professor Chaowei Phil Yang
Chaowei Phil Yang is Professor and Director of the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center at George Mason University. His research focuses on utilizing spatiotemporal principles to optimize computing infrastructure to support science discoveries and engineering development. He has been funded as PI with over $40M expenditures and participated/participates in over $50M projects. He published over 200 papers, edited over 10 books and journal special issues. He is also one of most successful professors at placing students as faculty members and industry leaders in the U.S. and worldwide. He currently collaborates with Harvard faculty and their partners to establish the spatiotemporal infrastructure through a) spatiotemporal thinking to improve human intelligence, b) spatiotemporal computing to advance computing system and tools, and c) spatiotemporal applications to address national and global pressing challenges such as flooding, urban heat island, digital twins, etc.
Garikai Nhongo, MCIM
Garikai is a highly experienced leader with over 17 years of experience in project management, communication, events management, stakeholder engagement, and team leadership. He is known for his exceptional leadership skills, ability to inspire and lead teams towards success, and his dedication to achieving results. His expertise in stakeholder management and communication has been instrumental in building strong relationships with clients, partners, and stakeholders, resulting in successful project outcomes.
Throughout his career, Garikai has consistently demonstrated his ability to manage budgets, meet timelines, and exceed expectations. He has successfully led teams on large-scale projects in various industries, including telecommunications, energy, and finance. His knowledge of project management methodologies has enabled him to adapt to changing project requirements and deliver successful outcomes.
Garikai is also an excellent communicator and has been instrumental in creating effective communication strategies for organizations. He has experience in creating and executing comprehensive communication plans for internal and external stakeholders, which have resulted in improved stakeholder engagement and increased brand recognition.
Professor James R. Stellar
As a professor of behavioral neuroscience for forty years, first at Harvard University and then at Northeastern University, Stellar studied the basic neurobiology of reward/motivational processes with a remarkable group of students in his research laboratory. In 1998, he became Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Northeastern, serving for ten years during the period of the university’s rapid rise in quality and ranking. During this period the college promoted experiential education as a powerful complement to a classical college curriculum. In 2009, he joined the public university world first as Provost at Queens College CUNY and then in February of 2015 as Provost at the University at Albany SUNY, where he also served as interim president for a year before happily returning to the Provost’s position and then back to faculty in 2019. He currently teaches in the Psychology Department at the University at Albany and writes with students and colleagues (https://www.neuroexed.com/) books, a blog, and co-hosts a podcast on the neuroscience of experiential learning. He consults with profit and non-profit organizations that are listed on the above URL.