2024 PPC Speaker Bios 

Migration Policy Institute

Jeanne Batalova is a Senior Policy Analyst and Demographer at the Migration Policy Institute. She is also Manager of the Migration Data Hub, a one-stop, online resource with the latest facts, stats, and maps covering U.S. and global data on immigration and immigrant integration. Her areas of expertise include the impacts of immigrants on society and labor markets; social and economic mobility; and the policies and practices regulating the immigration and integration of highly skilled workers and foreign students.

Dr. Batalova earned her PhD in sociology, with a specialization in demography, from the University of California-Irvine; an MBA from Roosevelt University; and bachelor of the arts in economics from the Academy of Economic Studies, Chisinau, Moldova.

Iowa State University

Dr. Brown is Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering and Gary and Donna Hoover Chair in Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University. He is the founding director and currently co-director of ISU’s Bioeconomy Institute. He holds courtesy appointments in chemical and biological engineering, agricultural and biosystems engineering, and food science and nutrition. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and a Fellow of the American Institute of Mechanical Engineers. His research interests include advanced biofuels, plastics upcycling, and carbon negative energy. Dr. Brown has written over 300 scientific papers and has been awarded 26 US patents. He wrote Biorenewable Resources: Engineering New Products from Agriculture, widely used as a textbook around the world.

Vice President, Quantum Supercomputing Programs

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Dr. Broz has responsibility for leading IBM Quantum’s quantum-centric supercomputing programs and adoption of advanced quantum computing capabilities. He joined IBM Quantum in March 2021 after serving as the founding Executive Director of the federally chartered Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) under the National Quantum Initiative Act. He has supported DOE, DOD, Air Force, Army, Navy, DHS, NIH, NIAID, DOJ, and other departments through agency research, consulting contracts, and advisory boards. Prior to the QED-C, he served as Vice President of Applied Sciences at SRI, where he led laboratories in applied science, government business development, and technical and business strategy. He also served as VP of Business Development and Research at Titanium Metals, and Laboratory Director of Tenneco, Inc., where he was responsible for product development, manufacturing operations, quality, technology, and environmental management across corporate divisions worldwide.

Dr. Broz served as a White House Fellow for the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the administration of George H.W. Bush. He was a British American Fellow at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a Senior Fellow for National Security and Energy at NORC at the University of Chicago. He has a BS in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute (ETH) in Zurich.

Iowa State University

W. Samuel Easterling serves as the James L. and Katherine S. Melsa Dean of Engineering and Professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at Iowa State University.  He received his BS and MS degrees in civil engineering from West Virginia University, and his PhD in structural engineering from Iowa State University.   Prior to returning to Iowa State as dean in 2019, Easterling spent 32 years on the faculty at Virginia Tech, where he served as head of the Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 2009-2019. He was active in university governance at Virginia Tech, serving as president of the faculty senate, chair of the commission on faculty affairs; chair of the commission on research; and a member of university council.

Easterling is an accomplished educator, scholar and administrator and is a registered Professional Engineer. He is active in professional organizations including the American Institute of Steel Construction, American Society of Civil Engineers and American Society for Engineering Education. He presently serves on the Committee on Specifications for AISC and is Chair of the ASEE EDC Public Policy Committee. Easterling’s primary research interests are in the areas of composite and cold-formed steel structures, and he has received numerous awards for his research and professional service. He is a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Structural Engineering Institute and a Distinguished Member of the Structural Stability Research Council.

NSF Division Director for DUE

Dr. Hargraves is Division Director for the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE), in the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources, which strengthens STEM education at two- and four-year colleges and universities. Dr. Hargraves is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University and previously served as an Intermittent Expert for NSF's Directorate for Education and Human Resources.

In addition to STEM education, Dr. Hargraves’ research interests also include diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education, machine learning, biomedical signal and image processing, and the role of science and technology in international development. Dr. Hargraves received her bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia. During her 25 years at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Dr. Hargraves co-founded the VCU College of Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering, and has served in numerous leadership roles, including Associate Vice President for Inclusive Excellence, Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University – University of KwaZulu Natal International Partnership, Associate Dean in the College of Engineering, and Interim Co-chair in the School of Education Department of Teaching and Learning.  

Deputy Director, Information Directorate

Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, NY

Dr. Hayduk is the Deputy Director, Information Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, New York. The directorate’s mission is to lead the development and integration of Air Force warfighting information technologies for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, and Cyber. Dr. Hayduk plays a key role in overseeing an annual budget of over $1.5 billion, leading the activities of over 1,200 employees. Upon completion of his graduate studies, he served as a research engineer where he developed ultrafast solid state pulsed lasers for optical communication systems. He became the acting Chief for the Electro-Optic Components Branch in which he led the development of components and subsystems for advanced radio frequency and electro-optic AF sensor systems.

He then became the Chief of the Emerging Computing Technology branch leading fundamental and exploratory research and development in nanocomputing, quantum computing [I WOULD INSERT A COMMA HERE BUT NOT SURE IF “quantum computing and optical computing” is one phrase] and optical computing for advanced computing architectures. From 2011 to 2019, while in the role of Chief of the Computing and Communications Division, he led the discovery, development, and integration of affordable computing, networking, and communications technologies. With over 50 journal and conference papers published and one US patent, Dr. Hayduk is a senior advisor for the Quantum Information Science research portfolio for AFRL. He earned a BS from Clarkson University, an MS from the University of Virginia, and his PhD from Cornell University, all in electrical engineering.

Chief Executive Officer Quantinuum  

Dr. Hazra is CEO of Quantinuum and has more than three decades of experience in supercomputing, quantum, and technical roles across the globe. Prior to joining Quantinuum, he served as the General Manager, Compute and Networking Business Unit at Micron Technologies, and spent 25 years at Intel Corporation, leading the Enterprise and Government Group, Technical Computing Group, Supercomputer Architecture and Planning, and Systems Technology Research. Before joining Intel in 1995, Dr. Hazra was with the Lockheed Corporation based at NASA’s Langley Research Center. He has a PhD and a master’s degree in computer science from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India, and holds 16 patents.

The George Washington University

Dr. Hwa is professor and department chair of computer science at The George Washington University. Dr. Hwa's research sits at the intersection of natural language process, machine learning, and human computer interaction. Her work focuses on developing machine learning methods that reveal the hidden syntactic and semantic structures within languages. These methods have applications in diverse domains, including health, education, and the social sciences. Some of her recent projects include: modeling student behaviors in revising argumentative essays, identifying symbolisms in multimodal rhetorics, and recognizing group biases in social media.

NSF Division Director for TIP

Dr. Johnson joined the University of Virginia in 1984 as an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering after working at Harris Corp. for several years, and in 1998 became director of the university’s Center for Safety-Critical Systems. From 2006 to 2011 Dr. Johnson was the Engineering School’s associate dean for research.

While at University of Virginia, Dr. Johnson acted as a consultant to more than a dozen companies and government agencies. In 2001 he co-founded the biometric security company Privaris, Inc., where he served as chairman of the board of directors and, for nearly four years, as president and chief executive officer. In 2010, Johnson became the founding president and executive director of the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing—a partnership between academia and industry to speed technology transfer. He served on the CCAM board of directors as chair for two years and then as a board member through the present. In 2012, he began serving as chairman of the board of directors for the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Logistics Systems. He also served as a board of directors member for the Commonwealth Center for Aerospace Propulsion Systems.

Dr. Johnson earned his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and PhD in electrical engineering, all at the University of Virginia. His expertise is in techniques for the design and analysis of safety-critical systems. He has investigated architectures and algorithms to ensure the safety of hardware/software systems, and he has developed methods for modeling, analyzing, and predicting the safety of these systems. He has published more than 150 technical articles, and he is an inventor on 29 issued patents. Dr. Johnson’s work has been recognized with many awards, including the Frederick Emmons Terman Award, the C. Holmes MacDonald Award, and the Alan Berman Research Publications Award. He won the Alumni Board of Trustees and University of Virginia Endowment Fund Young Teacher Award, State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, and the University of Virginia Engineering Foundation Outstanding Faculty Award. He has been active in IEEE as both a committee member and editor, and in 2006 was named a Fellow of IEEE for his contributions to fault-tolerant computing. He served as president of the IEEE Computer Society in 1997.

Georgia-Ann Klutke

National Science Foundation

Dr. Klutke is Program Director for the Operations Engineering (OE) program in the Engineering Directorate at NSF. She retired in 2015 from a long academic career, most recently in industrial and systems engineering at Texas A&M University, where she is an emeritus professor. The following year she joined NSF, where she is also actively engaged in cross-cutting initiatives such as CAREER, Disrupting Operations of Illicit Supply Networks, Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science, and AI Institutes, among other activities. She earned her BS in mathematics and MS in biostatistics from University of Michigan, MS in operations research from Wayne State University, and PhD in industrial engineering and operations research from Virginia Tech College of Engineering.

Iowa State University

Magill has served as director of federal relations since 2015 in the office of the president. In those responsibilities, she advocates on behalf of the university's federal priorities by promoting research, higher education, and science activities, and leveraging campus expertise to increase federal support and expand awareness of the university in Washington, DC.

Magill is engaged in the higher education community, having served as chair of the Council on Governmental Affairs (CGA) at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU). She currently serves as CGA liaison to the Council of Academic Affairs. Before joining the university, she served at the US Agency for International Development. Magill earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Iowa State University, and her master's degree in public administration from the University of Illinois Chicago.

Micron Technology    REWRITTEN FROM LINKEDIN PAGE--CONFIRM

Martin is Senior Manager for Talent Acquisition at Micron Technology. Most of his experience lies in the research and development of semiconductors. He has also worked for a start-up medical device company in optics research and development, and for University of Pennsylvania as a research operations engineer. Before earning his BS in materials science and engineering at Drexel University, he earned a BS in physics at Morehouse College.

University at Buffalo

Dr. Jinjun Xiong is a computer scientist who specializes in using artificial intelligence for social good, including creating AI solutions for educational and sustainability challenges. His research focuses on developing novel AI algorithms for computer vision, natural language processing and speech processing; software and hardware co-optimization and computer architecture innovation for AI algorithms and solutions; and large-scale benchmarking platforms for AI models’ reproducibility and AI systems’ characterization and optimization.

As director of the University at Buffalo’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, he brings together faculty researchers, private businesses, and government agencies to promote multidisciplinary research and curriculum development. He is also the scientific director and co-director for the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education, which is creating artificial intelligence solutions to assist children with speech and language challenges.