Washington Speaker Series: Speakers
The Globalization of ICT: Evaluating the Role and Responsibility of the Digital Citizen
Panel Moderator
Pradeep K. Khosla
Dean of the College of Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Invited Guest Speaker
Robert J. Wright
Senior Advisor, Planning and Environmental Analysis, Office of Fossil Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
Panel
Louis Finkel
Chief of Staff
Committee on Science and Technology
Robert Fri
Visiting Scholar
Resources for The Future
Sharon L. Hays
Vice President, Office of Science and Engineering at CSC
Former Associate Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Jim Hunter
Director, Utility Department
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
Constantine "Costa" Samaras
Associate Engineer and Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation
Adjunct Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
Speaker Biographies
Louis Finkel
Chief of Staff
Committee on Science and Technology
Louis Finkel serves as the Chief of Staff for the Committee on Science and Technology. As such he acts as staff director, administrator, and senior policy adviser to Committee Chairman Bart Gordon. He is responsible for managing a team of Committee scientists, engineers, attorneys, and other professional support staff as well as the Committee budget and all administrative operations. Prior to joining the Committee, Finkel spent six years in the private sector representing the interests of educational institutions, non-profits, technology companies and energy interests. Previously, he served in several legislative capacities with two different Members of Congress. His most recent congressional service was as Legislative Director to Committee Chairman Rep. Gordon. In that capacity he served as a Senior Policy Advisor and managed Rep. Gordon's legislative operations. In addition, he worked on a diverse policy portfolio that included energy, transportation, education, agriculture, the environment, and consumer protection.
Robert Fri
Visiting Scholar
Resources for The Future
Robert Fri is a Visiting Scholar and Senior Fellow Emeritus at Resources for the Future, a nonprofit organization that studies natural resource and environmental issues. He has served as director of the National Museum of Natural History, president of Resources for the Future, and deputy administrator of both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Research and Development Administration. Fri is a National Associate of the National Academies, where he served as vice-chair of the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems at the National Research Council, and on several NRC committees, most recently on America's Energy Future and America's Climate Choices. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sharon L. Hays
Vice President, Office of Science and Engineering at CSC
Former Associate Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Dr. Sharon L. Hays is Vice President, Office of Science and Engineering, at CSC. In this role, Hays coordinates science and engineering activities across the North American Public Sector (NPS) and helps develop new growth opportunities in key areas, such as climate change science and engineering.
Before joining CSC, Hays served in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as the Deputy Director for Science and, after confirmation by the U.S. Senate in September, 2006, as Associate Director. In these roles, she led the strategic direction for all OSTP activities related to a range of science initiatives and advised White House offices on environmental and security policies. She also led the U.S. delegation to the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Hays served previously as OSTP's Chief of Staff, where she oversaw operations including the office’s legislative, public affairs, international and legal activities, security operations and administration.
Prior to coming to OSTP, Hays was the Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Research of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science. Before her promotion to Staff Director, Hays worked as a professional staff member, first for the Basic Research Subcommittee and subsequently for the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Hays also served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Science Fellow in the office of Representative Vernon Ehlers between 1997 and 1999, where she helped develop the Science Committee's report entitled Unlocking Our Future: Toward a New National Science Policy.
Before going to Capitol Hill, Hays worked as a research assistant at the University of Southern California and then attended graduate school in biochemistry at Stanford University, where she studied in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Paul Berg and received her Ph.D. in 1997. Hays also holds a B.A. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jim Hunter
Director, Utility Department
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
Jim Hunter worked for Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) as a Relay Tech for over 30 years. During that time he worked in transmission/distribution substations and in the fossil fuel power plants that PEPCO owned.
In 1994 he was elected President and Business Manager of IBEW Local 1900 in Washington, D.C. In 1996 he intervened in the Pepco/BGE merger and testified as an expert witness on electric system design. From 1997 to 2002, Hunter intervened and testified in numerous cases before FERC, the D.C. and Maryland Public Service Commissions and at Department of Energy hearings.
In 1998 Maryland Governor Parris Glendening appointed him to the Governor's Taskforce on Electric System Reliability. In 2002 he was appointed to the IBEW International staff, and in 2004 was promoted to Director of the Utility Department. The IBEW has 220,000 members in the Utility branch, which includes electric, gas and water utilities in the U.S. and Canada.
Hunter serves on the advisory boards for Carnegie Mellon University and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and on sustainability Boards for American Electric Power and Energy Future Holdings. Hunter is on the Executive Council for the Center for Energy Workforce Development and is on the Board for the IBEW Utility Training Trust.
He has most recently worked as a subject matter expert to help formulate the IBEW's position on global warming including working on the Bingaman/Specter, Lieberman/Warner and most recently the Waxman/Markey climate change bills. He also worked on the IBEW/AEP International piece (border adjustments) that is in all three climate change bills.
Hunter represented the IBEW at the U.N. climate change conferences in Poznan, Poland in 2008 and in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009.
Pradeep K. Khosla
Dean of the College of Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pradeep K. Khosla is Dean of the College of Engineering, Philip and Marsha Dowd University Professor in the College of Engineering and School of Computer Science, and Founding Director of CyLab at Carnegie Mellon. His previous positions include: Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Director, Information Networking Institute; Founding Director of the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems; and Program Manager at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he managed a $50M portfolio of programs in real-time systems, Internet enabled software infrastructure, intelligent systems, and distributed systems.
Khosla is a consultant to companies and venture capitalists and has served on the technology advisory boards of many start-ups and currently serves on several advisory boards including Iron Leaf Capital Corporation, iNetworks LLC, ITU Ventures, and Alcoa CIO's Advisory Board. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Quantapoint Inc., BitArmor Inc., the Children's Institute, the IIT Foundation, Mellon-Pitt (MPC) Corporation, the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI), Doyle Center, and Pittsburgh Technology Council. He is a member of the IT advisory committee, CSIRO, Australia, and a member of ITU High Level Experts Group for the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA). He has served as a member of the Strategy Review Board for Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan; Council of Deans of the Aeronautics Advisory Committee, NASA; National Research Council Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design; and Senior Advisory Group for the DARPA Program on Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems.
Constantine "Costa" Samaras
Associate Engineer and Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation
Adjunct Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
Constantine "Costa" Samaras is an Associate Engineer and Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation. His research area is assessment of policy, technology and cost/benefit decision making under uncertainty and risk, primarily regarding energy and climate issues. He analyzes how policy actions and R&D investments affect energy pathways, infrastructure requirements, economic and innovation outcomes and life cycle environmental impacts. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, where he co-teaches the interdisciplinary graduate course Innovation for Energy and the Environment. His contributions to the energy policy debate include numerous published studies exploring the economic, security, and environmental policy issues regarding the transition of the energy system to electric vehicles, renewable electricity, and low-carbon fuels. He most recently was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Climate Decision Making Center at Carnegie Mellon. Prior to beginning his graduate research, he was an engineering and sustainability consultant working on several multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects in New York, including the rebuilding of transit infrastructure beneath the World Trade Center that was destroyed on September 11th. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy and Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon (2008), a Masters of Public Administration from the School of Public Service at NYU, a BS in Civil Engineering from Bucknell University, and is a Leadership in Excellence and Environmental Design (LEED) Accredited Professional.
Robert J. Wright
Senior Advisor, Planning and Environmental Analysis, Office of Fossil Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
Robert J. Wright is Senior Advisor, Planning and Environmental Analysis, Office of Fossil Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy. He is a Member of the Maryland Governor’s Strategic Energy Investment Fund Advisory Board. Wright has forty years of experience in energy technologies and electrical power generation, including fossil fuels, nuclear energy and renewable energy. Currently he advises senior management at the Department of Energy with regard to programs and policies that address climate change, alternative fuels and carbon capture and storage. Wright has represented both the Department and the United States in discussions with domestic organizations and foreign countries regarding climate change and climate change technology. In 2007 he served as a Congressional Fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives, and in 2008 he served as a Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Senate. Both times he provided advice and counsel regarding a spectrum of issues with regard to energy and climate change technology. Currently he is extensively involved in international collaboration with Canada and Mexico on carbon capture and storage activities, including the development of a North American Carbon Storage Atlas.
He has a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, a MS from New Jersey Institute of Technology, an MBA from Duquesne University, and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the states of Pennsylvania and Maryland.