Speaker Bios
Keynote speaker
Lee T. Todd, Jr. became the 11th president of the University of Kentucky on July 1, 2001. He is a native of Earlington, Ky. and a graduate of UK and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. President Todd is the sixth UK alumnus to hold the presidency. He is a former UK engineering professor; a successful businessman who launched two worldwide technology companies, both based in Kentucky; and a public advocate for research, technology, and an entrepreneurial economy in the Commonwealth.
Panel 1: Academic, Social & Cultural Entrepreneurship
Jim Bellanca has more than 40 years of experience as a classroom teacher, alternative school director, professional developer for educators, and intermediate service center consultant. He has published more than 60 books and articles, including bestsellers: Professional Development for Change: Blue Prints for Achievement in the Cooperative Classroom (with Robin Fogarty), Multiple Assessments for Multiple Intelligences, What is it About Me You Can’t Teach? (with Eleanor Rodriguez), and The Graphic Organizer. Fueled by his passion and commitment to providing professional learning opportunities for educators, Bellanca has established himself as a successful creative entrepreneur, first inside the system and then outside. After helping the State of Illinois establish the Illinois Centers for Educational Improvement, he went on to build Skylight Professional Development as cutting edge publisher. After selling SkyLight to Pearson Education he stayed in retirement until the founding of the International Renewal Institute, a company that focuses professional development for educators on 21st Century Skills.
Liora Bresler is a Professor in the department of Curriculum & Instruction and has published 100+ papers, book chapters and books on the arts in education, including the edited International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (2007). She is the co-founder and co-editor of the International Journal of Education and the Arts (1999-). Her work has been translated to German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew and Chinese. Bresler gave keynote speeches in six continents, and presented invited talks, and short courses in 30+ universities in Europe, Australia, and Asia. Recent awards include Distinguished Fellow in NAEA (2010), and the Ziegfeld Award for distinguished international leadership in art education (2007). She has won the Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Training at the University of Illinois (2005). One of her most recent publications is “University Faculty as Intellectual Entrepreneurs: Vision, Experiential Learning, and Animation,” published in Visual Arts Research in 2009.
Andrea Golato is an Associate Dean in the Graduate College and an Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. She is an affiliated faculty member in the Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE) Program, the European Union Center, and the Center for Translation Studies. Her active research program in conversation analysis explores the interconnections between interaction, culture and grammar. She has advised numerous graduate students in German and within the wider SLATE community, and has received the Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring. She is also a faculty fellow of the Academy of Entrepreneurial Leadership and in Fall 2009 taught a graduate seminar entitled “Educational Entrepreneurship: Teaching Language Across the Curriculum.” It prepared graduate students to develop undergraduate courses on language for specific purposes that incorporate entrepreneurial principles. Golato holds a Diplom in Translation Studies from the Johannes-Gutenberg Universität Mainz-Germersheim and a Ph.D. in German Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Laura Huth now leads the award-winning team at do good Consulting after 13 years in the trenches of a variety of local, state, and nationally-affiliated non-profit organizations. At do good Consulting, Huth specializes in full-scale donor-driven fundraising programs and strategies, program development, organizational growth and strategic planning, marketing and outreach strategies, storytelling, image and service enhancement, and investing local businesses and media in the work of area charities. At age 24, Huth founded the Illinois Student Environmental Network, a statewide training organization increasing the skills and capacity of student environmental groups across Illinois. She also helped found several grassroots community groups, such as Save Our Trees, and the award-winning Historic East Urbana Neighborhood Association. She also spent two terms as an elected member of the Urbana City Council, and previously served as executive director of the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity. Huth has received numerous awards, including 2008 Female of the Year by the Central Illinois Business magazine, and in 2009, do good Consulting was name the Champaign County Small Business of the Year.
Panel 2: Entrepreneurship & Commercial Enterprises
Hans Blaschek received his Ph.D. in Food Science (Microbiology), at Rutgers University in 1980. He presently serves as the Interim Director for the Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research (CABER), University of Illinois where he is responsible for leading planning efforts for the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory. In addition, Blaschek holds the position of Theme Leader of Molecular Bioengineering of Biomass Conversion Research Theme with the Institute for Genomic Biology. He also serves as an Assistant Dean, Biobased Research Initiatives in the Office of Research, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. His research areas include: Genetic manipulation of microorganisms for biotechnological applications and examination of dry milling co-products as substrates for fermentation to value-added products.
Mark J. Laufenberg has been the President of PowerWorld Corporation since its inception in 1996. PowerWorld, based in Champaign, Illinois, develops and distributes software for the simulation and visualization of large-scale electric power grids. Their products have been sold to over 600 separate corporate entities in 60 different countries around the world. PowerWorld's customer list includes many utilities, both foreign and domestic, and many regulatory agencies, consulting firms, trading firms, and universities. Laufenberg received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1996 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been the Principal Investigator on several National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grants.
Jay Kesan is a Professor in the College of Law where he is also the Director for the Program in Intellectual Property & Technology Law and the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Faculty Scholar. Kesan's academic interests are in the areas of technology, law, and business. Specifically, his work focuses on patent law, intellectual property, entrepreneurship, internet law/regulation, digital government (e-gov), agricultural biotechnology law, and biofuels regulation. At the Institute of Genomic Biology (IGB), he is Group Leader of the Business, Economics & Law of Genomic Biology (BioBEL) theme and is Program Leader of the Biofuel Law & Regulation Program at the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI). In Fall 2009, he was named a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Vice President for Technology and Economic Development (OVPTED) for the 2009-2010 academic year. In his role as a Faculty Fellow, Kesan will be working closely with OVPTED and the Offices of Technology Management (OTM) in furthering the University’s technology commercialization efforts, especially in further refining the University’s intellectual property protection strategy.