*Sejal Pietrzak has held executive leadership positions for fast-paced, global enterprise software companies for the past two decades. *Most recently, Sejal was the CEO of DealerSocket, a leading software company in the automotive industry. *Recognized with several awards including recently being ranked #7 in the Software Report’s Top 50 SaaS (Software as a Service) CEOs list, one of the top 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry, and one of the Top 25 Women in Private Equity-Backed Software Companies. *Holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree from The College of William & Mary in Virginia.

Dr. Easton has been on the faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Southern Methodist University since 2000. Currently he serves as assistant chair, chief undergraduate advisor, and program director of the Master of Science in Environmental Engineering. He is a senior lecturer, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Environmental Engineering, including Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering, Aquatic Chemistry, Solid and Hazardous Waste Management, Biological Processes and Wastewater Treatment, Urban Hydraulics and Hydrology, Laboratory and Field Methods, and Environmental Epidemiology. He serves the university as secretary of the Council of General Education and the Lyle School as director of accreditation. Dr. Easton received his PhD in Environmental Health Engineering, along with an MS degree in Civil Engineering, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; he also holds a BA degree in Biology from the University of Kansas.

An experienced executive with a proven track record of building and leading multi-disciplinary teams to design and scale award-winning technology products and solutions at startups and Fortune 500 companies. An inventor of more than 30 Patents, Siraj is team leader with deep cross-functional experience in R&D, Product Management, Business Development and Technical Marketing. Strength in anticipating critical market transitions and commercializing industry-first products to serve billion-dollar-plus addressable markets. Experience raising venture capital, interfacing with public market analysts, and adding strategic value via technical advisory and outside director board positions.

Robin Patel, M.D., is the Director of the Infectious Diseases Research Laboratory at Mayo Clinic. In this research laboratory, she and her colleagues study biofilms and resistance to antibiotics. Biofilms cause a large number of infections in modern clinical practice, such as periprosthetic joint infection and infective endocarditis. Resistance to antibiotics is a global crisis.

Dr. Patel and her team are unraveling the process of biofilm formation and resistance to antibiotics. They are developing new and improved diagnostic tools and treatment strategies for biofilm-associated infections and to tackle antibiotic resistance. Her group uses in vitro studies as well as animal models of infection for their studies.

Dr. Patel is a Past-President of the American Society for Microbiology. She is the Co-Director of the Mayo Clinic Clinical Bacteriology Laboratory; in this state-of-the-art clinical facility, she and her colleagues develop and deploy cutting-edge assays for clinical detection of bacteria, identification of bacteria, and characterization of antimicrobial resistance and susceptibility.

Focus areas

Biofilm-mediated infections Novel approaches to diagnosing periprosthetic joint infection Novel antimicrobial agents for therapy of bacterial infections Animal models of infection Clinical bacteriology diagnostic assays

HPHS Class of 2018 Rice University B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Semiconductor Manufacturing Engineer at Samsung Part of team that operates 5,000 semiconductor vacuum pumps

• Graduated with a BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University ‘96
• Worked in Cancer Drug Development for 8 years - basic research and pharmacokinetics
• Started a software company during the .com boom, some applications still in use
• Moved into Human Resources Software technology
• Joined IBM Cloud to lead development and IT teams maintaining the backbone of the Cloud

Focus on Global Environmental Sustainability Practices

BS, Mechanical Engineering - UTA & Texas Tech University

Created global sustainability database for the open sharing of projects creating positive impacts on the environment. Posts can be freely submitted by any person or community, and span a wide range of categories (home water conservation, school recycling programs, energy efficient building features, renewable energy use, etc.).

Worked as a facilities consultant, performing building and property assessments of hundreds of facilities across the United States, often adjacent to environmental site assessors and other building specialists. City engineer among teams involved with construction of city systems such as water/sewer pipelines and distribution, streets and sidewalks, stormwater drainage planning, and transportation/traffic services.

I graduated from SMU with degrees in Geology, Mechanical Engineering, and Geophysics. My first job out of college was a Petroleum Engineer with Mobil Oil Co. as in the New Mexico oil fields. After one year, the oil business crashed and I got laid off. I then took a job in Fort Worth as a Facilities Engineer at Lockheed Martin where the F-16 Fighter Jet was being built. We currently build the F-35 stealth fighter. After a few years, I became an Environmental Engineer cleaning up waste disposal sites at the Lockheed facility. Ten years later, I became a Quality Engineer auditing environmental, safety and health management systems. Ten years after that, I took a job as a Safety Engineer whose job is to reduce risks of employee injuries in a manufacturing plant.