Class of 2022

Cofounder | TruePani

Samantha Becker graduated from Georgia Tech with a bachelor’s in Civil Engineering in 2016 and went on to receive her master’s in Public Health from the University of Michigan in 2019. She is the cofounder of TruePani, a communications and consulting firm focused on protecting public health from the effects of lead in drinking water. TruePani is committed to the idea that safe water is a basic human right and actively advocates for better education and transparency about water quality issues, most notably around lead in drinking water. TruePani has designed state-wide lead in drinking water testing projects that are available to over 20,000 schools and childcare facilities across the country. TruePani's mission is to educate the public about water quality issues and the steps that can be taken to reduce exposure to dangerous contaminants.

Favorite Tech Memory: Traveling to India under the Joe S. Mundy Global Learning Endowment to conduct water quality research.

Technical Program Manager | Intel

Graduating from Georgia Tech with a bachelor’s in Industrial Systems and Engineering and dual Business (T&M)/Mandarin minors, Alex Berry builds bridges between the private, public, and social sectors. His education fuels his ability to enable Intel’s global supply chain, where he focuses on technical program management, process improvement, and strategic facilitation. A technologist by day and a social entrepreneur by night, he incorporated CMD LLC, an organization that empowers underserved and untapped communities to craft powerful career narratives. He can’t wait to bring his STEM background, nonprofit board expertise, and team leadership expertise to Berkeley Haas’s MBA program this fall, growing into a technology leader!

Favorite Tech Memory: Sharing the Senior Design Finalist stage with my team and our families who had flown in from around the world!

Operations Team | SoftBank Latin America Fund

Victoria Bertasoli is a member of the SoftBank Latin America Operating Team, which supports Latin American unicorns and startups so they can succeed and achieve their best potential. Bertasoli was part of the founding team at Alice, a health-tech company in Brazil, where she served as a product manager for two-and-a-half years. Previously, she was a global technology manager at AB InBev, in their Innovation Office in Mountain View, Calif. In addition to her professional activities, Bertasoli cofounded BRASA, a nonprofit that supports Brazilian students abroad. She is also very passionate about sports.

Favorite Tech Memory: White out game against UGA where Georgia Tech won and took over the Tech stadium.

Director, New Verticals Consumer | DoorDash

Priya Boyington has found her passion in launching new businesses. Currently, she leads New Verticals Consumer at DoorDash, growing the company’s grocery, convenience, and alcohol verticals nationally. She spent the last decade starting businesses for underserved markets and those at the cutting edge of innovation, including: State Of Menopause, a menopause skincare line; HIKI, a genderless sweat line; Stitch Fix Kids; and Stitch Fix Freestyle, a direct buy offering. She started her career at Bain & Company, where she took an externship at GoldieBlox to inspire girls to pursue engineering—a passion she cultivated at Georgia Tech!

Favorite Tech Memory: Studying abroad at Oxford. From statics classes in a historic building to Scotland weekend trips, it was an amazing experience!

CEO | SlateSafety

Zack Braun graduated with his bachelor’s in Computer Engineering and a master’s in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. While at Tech, he founded FireHUD, now SlateSafety, with fellow Yellow Jackets Tyler Sisk, EE 17, and Joe Boettcher, EE 17, MS CS 21. Braun has led SlateSafety to $4 million in funding from the National Science Foundation and United States Department of Defense. He recently closed a $1.7 million venture-backed seed round. Braun was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in 2020, and the SlateSafety band was named to TIME’s 100 Best Inventions of 2021. He is passionate about using wearable IoT technologies in impactful applications. He currently resides in Atlanta with his wife, Lyndsey, and their dogs, Sampson and Lenny.

Favorite Tech Memory: I will never forget the shock, then the joy in the moments after we won the 2016 Georgia Tech InVenture Prize.

Deputy Risk Manager, Emergency Physician, Assistant Professor | NASA and Duke University

Daniel Buckland is the deputy chair of the Human System Risk Board for NASA Johnson Space Center, where he is responsible for determining the human system risk of spaceflight. He also works as an attending emergency physician and assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University. He serves as the director of the Duke Acute Care Technology Lab, which develops automation technology for the diagnosis and treatment of acute diseases using robotics and data science. He has had NASA-funded projects in automated medical robotics with several patents pending. He lives with his family in Durham, N.C.

Favorite Tech Memory: Installing wheels on a couch and riding it down The Hill at 2 a.m.

Founder | ArchiveSocial

Anil Chawla is a technology entrepreneur based in Durham, N.C. He most recently founded ArchiveSocial, the No. 1 provider of software to archive and produce legal records of social media content. ArchiveSocial’s technology promotes government transparency by enabling public agencies to participate on social media while also ensuring compliance with Freedom of Information Act requirements. The company is best known for its ongoing role in officially preserving the social media history of the Executive Office of the President, beginning with the Obama White House in 2017. Chawla proudly received his bachelor’s in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

Favorite Tech Memory: As a Java class TA, using the analogy of failing in romance to teach “exception handling” on Valentine’s Day.

Federal Customer Experience Lead | Executive Office of the President

Amira Choueiki Boland joined the Federal government during the Obama administration as a founding member of the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. Prior to this, she conducted counter-terrorism research and worked with financial and insurance companies on products based on individuals’ financial and risk-taking behavior. During the Trump administration, she helped institutionalize the Office of Evaluation Sciences, a team that embeds evaluations into program delivery. Boland joined the Office of Management and Budget in 2018 as the first-ever lead for Customer Experience, and is now focused on transforming public service delivery to rebuild trust. She coordinated OMB’s implementation of the Biden administration’s day-one Executive Order on advancing equity.

Favorite Tech Memory: My roommate had an amazing picture in our living room of Earth, captured from a satellite she worked on—classic Georgia Tech.

Mars 2020 Payload Lead Systems Engineer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA

Elizabeth Córdoba serves as assistant manager of the Flight System Engineering, Integration, and Test Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she helps lead a section of 290 of the world’s premier systems engineers to design, build, and deliver one of a kind missions to explore the universe. Previously, Córdoba was the payload lead systems engineer for the seven instruments on the Mars 2020 rover. Other roles include: SMAP (a soil moisture Earth science mission) flight system verification and validation lead, SMAP science activity lead, and mission concepts engineer. She is the proud recipient of the NASA Public Achievement Medal, the JPL People Leadership Award, and the NASA Early Career Medal.

Favorite Tech Memory: Everything about my roommates in ULC (now Nelson Shell): the best friends, the shenanigans, and the hard work—207 love!

Technical Program Manager | AWS Ground Station, an Amazon subsidiary

Tiffany Davis is an aerospace engineer and a computer scientist with a great love for everything “space!” Davis speaks at schools and conferences, hosts STEM-inspired workshops, and runs a mentoring and scholarship program. Both her professional work and community work have been recognized on national platforms. Davis holds a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering and a master’s degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. She currently works in the satellite Ground Station Division of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Previously, she worked at the Boeing Company for six years, operating commercial and national security missions as a spacecraft vehicle engineer.

Favorite Tech Memory: Bringing sitting President Obama to Georgia Tech to introduce the Student Bill of Rights.

Assistant Professor | University of California, Berkeley

Maya Elizabeth Carrasquillo is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the principal investigator of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Liberation Lab (JEDI (L)ab) at the University of California, Berkeley. The mission of JEDI (L)ab is to develop systems of critical infrastructure that support liberation and restorative justice for all. Carrasquillo is a Huelskamp Faculty Fellow, which recognizes a promising new assistant professor in UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering for their innovative research.

Favorite Tech Memory: Leading the effort for the inaugural Black History Month Lecture featuring Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry in 2014.

CEO & President | Insight Optics, Inc.

Aaron Enten is the president, CEO, and a technical cofounder of Insight Optics. Enten has more than 15 years of experience in medical device technology commercialization and innovation management. His expertise originates from the management, founding, and consulting of small and mid-cap companies. He maintains advisory positions across multiple companies and has held faculty and instructor positions at the University of Washington and Georgia Tech. He has advised emerging growth companies throughout his career, and has helped to build, instruct, and participate in accelerators across the country. He has personally founded three companies, seen successful exits, and led multinational research and development teams.

Favorite Tech Memory: The people at every event always felt like family.

Principal Investigator, Executive Director | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), The Jeremy T. Feaster Foundation, Inc.

Jeremy Feaster is a principal investigator and research staff scientist in the Materials Science Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His research focuses on using advanced manufacturing and chemical engineering to address climate change; specifically, he and his team create 3D-printed electrochemical reactors to convert CO2 into fuels and chemicals. He earned his master’s and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University after completing his bachelor’s in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. A passionate proponent of uplifting communities of color, he started the Jeremy T. Feaster Foundation, Inc., in 2012. The nonprofit organization has awarded over $20,000 in scholarships to Black students.

Favorite Tech Memory: FSU game!

CEO & Founder | NSPIRE AUTOMATION INC (Centilytics)

Aditya Garg is a founder & CEO of Centilytics, a Cloud Management Company building SaaS solutions to help companies better manage their cloud environments. He did his schooling from New Delhi, India, and came to the U.S. for an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, before continuing on to Stanford for his master’s in Computer Science, specializing in artificial intelligence and machine learning. He has been busy over the last five years building a bootstrapped startup, which now serves over 1,000 customers across the globe with over 180 employees working every day with the vision to bring democracy to the cloud.

Favorite Tech Memory: Georgia Tech–Lorraine was my best time.

Assistant Director for Environmental Science, Engineering, Policy, and Justice | The White House

Gretchen Goldman is the assistant director for Environmental Science, Engineering, Policy, and Justice at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previously, she was the research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. For more than a decade, Goldman has led research and advocacy efforts at the nexus of science and policy on topics such as federal scientific integrity, fossil energy production, climate and air quality, and environmental justice. She has testified before Congress and sat on the board of the nonprofit 500 Women Scientists. Dr. Goldman holds a PhD and a master’s in Environmental Engineering from Georgia Tech, and a bachelor’s in Atmospheric Science from Cornell University.

Favorite Tech Memory: Riding and fixing bikes!

Senior Director | Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Ahmad Haider is a people-first leader and a technology strategist with deep expertise in the fields of data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. He believes in the power of data and storytelling to change the world and has used them to build strong teams and innovative solutions to solve the most pressing problems in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and software industries. Coming from a diverse background himself, he believes in expanding the footprint of diversity, equity, and inclusion at home and in the workplace. His goal is to influence meaningful changes in society through better use of data and analytics.

Favorite Tech Memory: Playing trivia at Rocky Mountain Pizza every Wednesday evening with Georgia Tech friends. Won a few times, too!

Senior Director of Xbox Engineering | Microsoft

Andres Hernandez is a senior director of Xbox hardware at Microsoft. His team develops the hardware for the Xbox console, accessories, and xCloud. His team recently launched Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and the server blade hardware that runs the xCloud. He regularly works with nonprofits on events to inspire and bring more minority students into STEM. He has six patents and two paper publications. During his free time, he competes in triathlons across the world. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech. He lives with his wife, Carolina, in Seattle, Wash.

Favorite Tech Memory: Studying abroad in Georgia Tech–Lorraine. Immersing in a different culture while learning and meeting new people is a fantastic memory.

Chief Executive Officer | Kudelski Security

Andrew Howard is CEO at Kudelski Security, a global cybersecurity solutions firm and industry leader in threat detection and response services. He is an expert in data privacy and protection. For Howard, Georgia Tech represents more than an alma mater of note. It represents the opportunity he was given to lead a preeminent cyber-focused, national defense R&D laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the experience he could leverage to steer clients through major cyber crisis while at PwC, and the insight and leadership skills he gained to defend global, leading brands from attack, in his role as CTO of Kudelski and now, as CEO. Howard is a regular media contributor and has been referenced by publications from Bloomberg to NBC on emerging cybersecurity topics and trends. He has twice been a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on cybersecurity. While at Tech, Howard was actively involved with Student Government, Omicron Delta Kappa, and the Residence Hall Association.

Favorite Tech Memory: Georgia Tech’s victory over UGA in 2013 in Athens, Ga. I have never seen such glee come to an entire community so fast.

Executive Director of Online Education & OMSCS | Georgia Tech

David Joyner is executive director of Online Education & OMSCS in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. He has authored over 50 papers and three books on online learning and CS education. He teaches five online classes reaching over 3,000 students per semester, and he has received several awards for his work in teaching online, including the 2022 College of Computing Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award, the 2019 USG Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching, and the 2018 Georgia Tech Center for Teaching & Learning Curriculum Innovation Award. He is also the chair of steering committee for the ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale.

Favorite Tech Memory: Taking CS1100 as a freshman with Charles Isbell and hearing his explanation of the P=NP problem.

Head of Product | Modern Meadow

Arshiya Lal has led strategy and growth for domestic and international emerging technology products for the past five years, ranging from the fashion industry to supply chain and retail sectors. As a fashion enthusiast, Lal is passionate about revolutionizing the business of fashion with innovative materials that have a low carbon footprint, zero wastage, and are ethically sourced. She currently serves as head of product at Modern Meadow, a biotech start-up that is a forerunner in lab-made biofabricated leather, where she brings sustainable leather alternatives to renowned global fashion brands and informs the future roadmap of Modern Meadow’s materials line.

Favorite Tech Memory: Homecoming concerts were always such a blast!

Lunar Surface Operations Specialist | NASA

Kavya Manyapu serves as a spacewalk specialist and lunar surface operations technical assistant at NASA, where she designs spacewalks and tests spacesuits for the Artemis Program. Prior to that, Manyapu served in multiple roles on the Boeing CST-100 Starliner program. She has a bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech, a master’s in Aeronautics & Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in Aerospace Sciences from the University of North Dakota. She invented technologies for self-cleaning spacesuits and habitats for lunar missions that led to six patents. Spacesuit samples from her research were launched to the International Space Station. She is an adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota, a vice chair of the International Astronautical Federation, and an aerospace officer and pilot in the Civil Air Patrol. She established a climb for a cause initiative called Project Shakthi to educate girls from underprivileged backgrounds. Along with a world record mountaineer, Manyapu is raising funds for education by climbing high altitude mountains.

Favorite Tech Memory: Presenting my undergraduate research work with my team at a prestigious aerospace conference in Denver. The trip also launched my interest in mountaineering!

Chief Operations Officer | restor3d, Inc.

Andy Miller is an entrepreneurial engineer with a diverse background in structural mechanics, biomaterials, 3D printing, and medical devices. He cofounded the medical device startup restor3d, Inc., where he currently serves as the chief operating officer. His focus is on developing internal processes and technology that deliver restor3d’s mission to enable surgeons with an enhanced ability to repair and reconstruct the human body through orthopedic implants with superior integrative properties and enhanced anatomical fit.

Favorite Tech Memory: Qualifying for and representing Georgia Tech at the NCAA Division I championship swim meet with eight fellow teammates in 2009.

Senior Research Engineer | Georgia Tech

Roxanne Moore is a senior research engineer in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) at Georgia Tech. She has served as principal investigator and coprincipal investigator for research grants from multiple sponsors, including the National Science Foundation and Amazon, with a focus on promoting diversity and inclusion in STEM. Her outreach programs and curricula have impacted more than 100,000 K–12 students nationwide. She is the cofounder and director of Georgia Tech’s K–12 InVenture Prize, a statewide invention competition, open to all students and teachers in Georgia.

Favorite Tech Memory: Tailgates and football games with the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Association (MEGA).

CEO | Govini

Tara Murphy Dougherty is the CEO of Govini. Prior to this, she served as Govini’s president, where she led strategy and growth and oversaw Govini’s work with all federal clients. She has held leadership positions in technology across industry, government, and nonprofit sectors, including at Palantir Technologies, and she served as chief of staff for Global Strategic Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, among other senior roles. She holds a bachelor’s from Georgia Tech and a master’s from Georgetown University. She serves on the Board of Directors for the National Defense University Foundation, the Board of Advisors for the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, and the Board of Directors of AFCEA DC.

Favorite Tech Memory: Stopping by the Architecture studio to visit my older sister on the way home from the library because the Architecture students were always up the latest!

Athletics Director | Clemson University

Graham Neff is in his first year as the director of athletics at Clemson University, one of the nation's premier athletic and academic institutions. He served in senior level positions at Clemson for the past eight years, and spent time at Deloitte, Middle Tennessee State Athletics, and Georgia Tech prior to his time at Clemson. He was also a board member for the Coaching For Literacy Foundation. He and his wife, Kristin, have three sons: Grady, and twins Nolan and Emmett.

Favorite Tech Memory: Marching the goalposts down Fowler Street to the President’s house after beating Auburn in 2003.

Founder and CEO | YegaTech

Mehdi Nourbakhsh is the CEO of YegaTech, a technology consulting company in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. He started YegaTech with the mission of helping AEC professionals and companies grow by curating their data and creating impactful artificial intelligence technologies. He lives with his wife, Samaneh, and their dog, Goofy, in San Francisco, California.

Favorite Tech Memory: Learning to swim at 30, which made me physically/mentally fit and inspired to help kids learn swimming and sportsmanship.

Cofounder & CEO | Ananya Health

Anu Parvatiyar is the cofounder & CEO of Ananya Health, a medical device company backed by Y Combinator that makes affordable and appropriate medical technologies to address the biggest issues in global public health. Ananya Health is currently building a platform to freeze abnormal cells before they become cervical cancer. The platform provides standard-of-care outcomes at one-tenth the cost of traditional cryoablation, in a portable form factor-optimized for primary care clinics worldwide. Prior to Ananya, Parvatiyar led Programs for eHealth Africa, where she built data systems that contributed to the eradication of Polio and other infectious diseases.

Favorite Tech Memory: Watching the sunrise from the top of the CRC during Relay for Life.

Aide-de-Camp (Senior Executive Assistant) | Rebellion Defense

David Pham is a Marine Corps reservist, aide-de-camp to the CEO of Rebellion Defense, and founder of Phamily Fund Inc., a nonprofit for inner-city youth outreach. As an infantry company commander, he led teams across the world and conducted critical missions in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. A native of Savannah, Georgia, Pham takes pride in being the son of an immigrant single-mother, a first generation college graduate, and a passionate philanthropist. He hopes to use his experiences and faith to improve immigrant and inner-city communities.

Favorite Tech Memory: My favorite memories are of sharing Georgia Tech traditions with my older sister.

Vice President, Government Relations | Atlanta Hawks & State Farm Arena

Amy Phuong is the vice president of government relations for the Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena. This role expands the team’s external affairs efforts to unite the broader Atlanta community through basketball, while deepening relationships with local and state leaders. Prior to joining the Hawks, Phuong spent nearly a decade in public service. Most recently, she served as parks and recreation commissioner and the first chief service officer for the city of Atlanta. Phuong is an Atlanta native and currently resides in the Reynoldstown neighborhood with her husband and son.

Favorite Tech Memory: Being spirited in my outfit choices (giant sombrero, flower leis) and introducing Tech to new students as a FASET leader.

Founder | Object-Oriented UX

Sophia Prater is the founder and lead UX designer at Rewired and the chief evangelist of Object-Oriented UX. Prater teaches her OOUX methodologies at conferences, within companies, and through her OOUX Certification Program. She is the host of the OOUX Happy Hour meetup and the OOUX Podcast. She brought the complexity-untangling magic of OOUX to companies such as Facebook, Google, Mastercard, Macy’s, Hubspot, Intercom, Delta Airlines, Adobe, Microsoft, CNN, and many more. Prater and her husband (and business partner) Luke live in the North Georgia mountains, where they hike, garden, and grow the OOUX empire.

Favorite Tech Memory: My 21st birthday party/housewarming party at our new house in Homepark. Enough said!

Senior Vice President | ACS Solutions

Sonia Sardana is the senior vice president at ACS Solutions, where she leads recruiting operations and is responsible for strategic sales and business development. She oversees the company’s global delivery centers for service excellence and is committed to quality and exceeding client expectations. Sardana joined ACS Solutions in 2012 and has since held multiple strategic leadership positions, including IT program manager, where she led digital transformation across the back office and financial systems. In a previous role as director of global operations and delivery she led the restructuring of the operations department by building a global strategy and implementing the plan across several geographies.

Favorite Tech Memory: I met my husband, Aditya Mishra, at Georgia Tech, and have been blessed with a 3-year-old son.

Elmore Associate Professor & Cofounder, Chairman & CTO | Purdue University & 10xAR (VC-backed stealth startup)

Shreyas Sen is the Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University and the inventor of the Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication, which uses the human body as a wire to securely communicate at orders of magnitude in power lower than radio communication. Sen is the recipient of the MIT TR35 India Award and an invited TEDx speaker for his work. He also founded 10xAR and serves as the chairman and CTO.

Favorite Tech Memory: In Prof. Rincon-Mora’s Analog IC Design Course he mentioned “Transistors are like a paintbrush and an analog designer is like a creative painter.”

Cofounder and COO | Snapcommerce

Henry Shi is the cofounder and COO of Snapcommerce, the mobile commerce and fintech company that enables consumers to experience more of what life has to offer. Under his leadership, Snapcommerce has grown to over 30 million users and exceeded $1 billion in sales. Prior to Snapcommerce, he has held an engineering position at Google and cofounded uMentioned. Shi holds a master’s in Computer Science with a specialization in Machine Learning from Georgia Tech and graduated in the top 1% of his class at the University of Waterloo. His entrepreneurial accomplishments have been recognized by Forbes’ 30 Under 30.

Favorite Tech Memory: Attending graduation in person, meeting the dean, and seeing the Georgia Tech campus after years of online learning.

Deputy Associate Administrator | NASA

Casey Swails is NASA’s deputy associate administrator for business operations. In this role, she is the deputy and principal advisor to the associate administrator (COO) on overall day-to-day operations and NASA’s long-term strategic direction, leads and integrates mission support functions across the agency, and builds and advances the agency’s industry partnerships. Previously, she served as the chief of staff and senior advisor to the associate administrator, as well as the agency’s deputy chief of staff during the presidential transition. In those positions, she ensured the effective flow of operations across NASA’s workforce and represented the agency in the alignment of policy, strategy, priorities, and program development.

Favorite Tech Memory: The night the Jackets made it to the Final Four in 2004! The campus went crazy!

Cofounder and CEO | Inspirit

Aditya Vishwanath is an education technology researcher and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and CEO of Inspirit, where he builds immersive 3D and virtual reality tools for STEM education. He is also a doctoral researcher at Stanford University and works at the intersection of the learning sciences, media, and design. He has been awarded the Stanford Knight-Hennessy scholarship, the Georgia Tech President’s Undergraduate Research Award (thrice), the SXSW EDU launch award (for Inspirit), and was recently nominated to the 2022 Forbes Technology Council and the 2022 Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in Education. He is also a social entrepreneur, and founded MakerGhat, a makerspace and incubator for youth from low-income communities in India, which now has a presence in over 6,000 schools across the country. Previously, he worked with the Google Education team, where he explored strategies to integrate low-cost virtual reality toolkits into curriculum. He aspires to continue to nurture a career designing education technology for diverse learning environments around the world.

Favorite Tech Memory: Camping in line for eight hours outside McCamish to meet President Obama!

CEO, Adaptive3D | Desktop Metal

Walter Everett Voit is the founder and chief executive officer of Adaptive3D, which licensed intellectual property from both Georgia Tech and the University of Texas at Dallas in pursuit of next-generation materials and additive manufacturing based on specialty polymers and thiol chemistries. Adaptive3D was acquired in 2021 by the public company Desktop Metal for $65 million. Voit is now a tenured associate professor and serial entrepreneur at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he explores the thermomechanics of shape memory polymers, flexible bioelectronics, next-generation neural interfaces, 3D printing, degradable polymers, and the effects of ionizing radiation on polymers.

Favorite Tech Memory: Watching Calvin Johnson torch the Hokies in 2006 with his aerial acrobatics.

Director, Dragon Mission Management | SpaceX

Sarah Walker lives in Los Angeles, where she is the director of Dragon Mission Management at SpaceX. She leads the team that manages and integrates SpaceX’s human spaceflight and cargo resupply missions. She met the love of her life in Intro to Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech and is a mom to four amazing kids, aged 4 and under. She is active in her church, passionate about space, and loves going outdoors as often as possible to hike, ski, and rock climb.

Favorite Tech Memory: Driving across the country and backpacking for two weeks in the Grand Canyon with eight students from ORGT!

Founder & Managing Partner | Converge Firm

Valerie Williams is the founder and managing partner of Converge Firm, a boutique DEI consulting firm leveraging her 16 years of experience advocating for fairness and equity in the workplace. Prior to launching Converge, she served as global head of Inclusion & Diversity at Stripe and helped create the foundational Diversity and Belonging Program at Airbnb. She has extensive executive, business, and technical recruiting experience at Google, Airbnb, and Russell Reynolds, as well as four years of supply chain and operations experience at Hewlett Packard. She studied engineering at Georgia Tech and holds an MBA from Emory University. She has served as a guest lecturer at Emory, USC, and the University of California, Berkeley, and is sought after as a thought leader on workforce inclusion.

Favorite Tech Memory: Final Four game for Georgia Tech Basketball team in 2004.

Associate Professor | University of California San Diego

Sheng Xu is currently an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego. He received his bachelor’s in Chemistry from Peking University and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Georgia Tech, followed by postdoctoral studies in the materials research lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His group is interested in developing new materials and fabrication strategies for flexible electronic devices. Xu’s research has been presented to the U.S. Congress as a testimony supporting the importance and impact of the National Institutes of Health’s appropriation. He has received many awards, including the MRS Outstanding Early Career Investigator award. He is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and a Frontier of Engineering of the National Academy of Engineering.

Favorite Tech Memory: I met my wife on her first day of orientation as a new PhD student in 2008.