Speakers

Biographies of Speakers for “Prospecta America” 2019

Sonia Monroy

Sonia Monroy

Sonia Esperanza Monroy is Deputy Director of COLCIENCIAS, Colombia. She is an Industrial Engineer from the Universidad de los Andes, Specialist in Information Systems in Organizations as well as Organizational Control and Management Systems of the same institution where she completed her undergraduate. She has a Masters’ degree in Administration with an emphasis on Technological Innovation from the National University of Colombia and a Ph.D in engineering, industry and organizations from the same institution.

She also has a Diploma in Technology Management and Commercialization from the Pontifical Bolivarian University in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin and the Monterrey Institute of Technology. She also has a degree in Education and University Management.

She served as Director of the Institute of Extension and Research – IEI; Coordinator of the Masters’ in Industrial Engineering and Professor in the Faculty of Engineering of the National University of Colombia.

In her career, Sonia has served as Vice Dean of Research and Extension of the Faculty of Engineering of the National University, as well as Director and Professor of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Parallel to the development of her academic career, she has worked in COLCIENCIAS, occupying several management positions, among which, Director of Knowledge Networks, Deputy Director of Strategic Programs, Advisor to the General Management, Head of the Internal Control and Management Office, Head of the Office of Operations and Evaluations and Secretary General.

Throughout her professional career she has participated in the design and execution of more than 64 projects with different entities, participated in various national and international events and contributed to over 21 publications.

Kim Osborne

Kim Osborne

Kim Osborne is the Executive Secretary for Integral Development at the Organization of American States, with responsibility for the Development Pillar; one of the four pillars of the organization.  For almost two decades, Ms. Osborne has dedicated herself to the socio-economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean region.  As a pioneer of the OAS Small Tourism Enterprise Program, an internationally recognized best practice, she focused on assisting small and medium enterprises achieve competitiveness and profitability by combining internationally recognized standards with high-value products, targeted marketing and branding. She is co-author of the Business Management and Operations Manual for Small Hotels and led the tourism training and capacity building program in the region.

From 2008 to 2011, she was appointed as the OAS Country Representative to Belize and in that role managed the OAS’ programs and relations with that country; navigating the political spectrum, while implementing numerous initiatives on sustainable livelihoods, institutional capacity building, tourism training and certification, women’s empowerment, among others.  Osborne is a founding member of the Center for Community Resource Development, an NGO set up to assist the most disadvantaged communities, by combating poverty through the application of an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) methodology.

More recently, Osborne has served as the head of the Technical Cooperation Section at the OAS Secretariat for Integral Development where she led the Organization’s Development Cooperation and partnerships program. In that capacity she spearheaded the re-structuring of the OAS Development Cooperation Fund and promoted the application of an alliance model to maximize multi-stakeholder partnerships for development and south-south cooperation.

Ms. Osborne has successfully negotiated and secured several partnership agreements with international and regional organizations to foster the work of the OAS in the hemisphere. She is a three-time winner of the organization’s outstanding performance award and in 2016 was elected as President of the Staff Association, where she led the effort towards the establishment of the OAS’ alternative work schedule scheme. She currently chairs the OAS Medical Benefits Trust Fund.

Before joining the OAS, Ms. Osborne was employed at the National Development Corporation of Dominica and has also held private sector positions in both Dominica and the Netherlands Antilles. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Public Management and Bachelor’s degree on Hospitality Management-Travel and Tourism Studies.

Fabiola León-Velarde

Fabiola León-Velarde

Doctor of Physiology from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH). Currently, she is the President of the National Council of Science, Technology and Technological Innovation of Peru (CONCYTEC). Her academic and scientific career has been distinguished in Peru and abroad. She received the distinction of “Knight of the Legion of Honor”, awarded by the Government of the Republic of France in 2011 and the “Order of Merit of Peruvian Women”, granted by the Government of Peru in 2012. She currently participates in various councils, public and private, among which the Board of Directors of the National Education Council (CNE), the Center for Peruvian Strategic Planning (CEPLAN), the National Superintendence of Higher Education (SUNEDU), the National System of Evaluation, Accreditation and Certification for Quality Education (SINEACE), the Strategic Orientation Council of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), and between 2005 and 2009, she joined the Advisory Committee of the Ibero-American Science and Technology Program (CYTED) with headquarters in Spain.

Jerome Glenn

Jerome Glenn

Jerome C. Glenn is the co-founder (1996) and CEO of The Millennium Project. He was the Washington, DC representative for the United Nations University (UNU) as Executive Director of the American Council for the UNU 1988-2007.

He has over 40 years of Futures Research experience working for governments, international organizations, and the private sector in Science & Technology Policy, Environmental Security, Economics, Education, Defense, Space, Futures Research Methodology, Telecommunications and Decision Support Systems with the Committee for the Future, Hudson Institute, Future Options Room, and the Millennium Project. He has addressed or keynoted conferences for over 300 government departments, universities, NGOs, UN organizations, and/or corporations around the world and on a variety of future-oriented topics. He has published over 100 future-oriented articles and has many such projects and studies taking place at this time.

Glenn has a BA in philosophy from American University, an MA in Teaching Social Science – Futuristics from Antioch Graduate School of Education (now Antioch University New England), and was a doctoral candidate in general futures research at the University of Massachusetts. He received the Donella Meadows Medal, Kondratieff Medal, Emerald Citation of Excellence, honorary professorship and doctor’s degrees from two universities in South America (Universidad Ricardo Palma and Universidad Franz Tamayo).

Francisco José Mojica

Francisco José Mojica

Francisco Jose Mojica is a Doctor in Human Sciences from the University of Paris V “René Descartes” (Sorbonne) and postdoctoral in “Prospective and Strategy” at the Research Laboratory in Prospective, Strategy and Organizations under the direction of Professor Michel Godet, in Paris, and has broad experience as a researcher in Technology Foresight.

He was invited by the UNESCO to the “International Institute for Educational Planning” (IIEP) in Paris (1991) and to the “Regional Center for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean “(CRESALC) in Caracas (1992). Likewise, he was invited by UNIDO to advise the prospective project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Venezuela (2000) and served as a Consultant of the “Andrés Bello Agreement” from 2000 to 2008. He has currently been invited by “Pro Governance” (Government of Canada) to participate in the training of the territorial prospective processes of Peru (2015) and by ECLAC to provide training in technology foresight to countries of the region (Cuba, Bolivia, 2015). He is the Author of multiple books and scientific publications on Technology Foresight.

Ernesto Marinero

Ernesto Marinero

Ernesto Marinero is Professor of Materials Engineering and Manufacturing, Director of Deliberate Innovation for Faculty, Nanotechnology at Purdue University and has a Ph.D. in Physics from the Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Ernesto Marinero joined Purdue University on February 2013 after a successful industrial career in Silicon Valley. His research experience in both fundamental and applied science was gained through appointments at the Max Planck Institute in Goettingen, Germany; Stanford University, California; the IBM Almaden Research Center and the Hitachi San Jose Research Center, both in San Jose, California. He is an experimentalist whose expertise includes Materials Science, Synthesis of Nanostructured Materials, Laser Physics and Picosecond Phenomena, Laser-Materials Processing, Magnetism and Nanoscale Sensor Device Physics and Fabrication. In addition to his scientific publications, his granted patent portfolio comprises 58 in the USA, 32 in Asia and 15 in Europe.

The Marinero research group focuses on the synthesis of nanoscale materials, their characterization and device applications for energy storage, spintronics and biosensors.

Gustavo Medina

Gustavo Medina

Obtuvo la licenciatura en Física en la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán (Argentina) y el Doctorado en Ciencias por la Universidad de Sao Paulo (Brasil). Realizó un par de estancias posdoctorales en el Royal Greenwich Observatory y en la Universidad de Leeds.

Actualmente es Investigador Titular adscrito al Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), donde también se desempeña como responsable del Laboratorio de Instrumentación Espacial LINX, e Investigador Nacional nivel II del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores.

El Dr. Medina cuenta con más de 200 publicaciones entre las cuales se encuentran artículos indexados y artículos en extenso presentados en foros académicos nacionales e internacionales, lo cuales han sido citados en más de 3500 ocasiones. Ha sido editor invitado de Experimental Astronomy y editor de la revista High Energy Physics. En lo que se refiere a formación de recursos humanos, el Dr. Medina ha dirigido 4 tesis de doctorado y 9 de maestría, además de haber supervisado estancias posdoctorales. En cuanto a docencia ha impartido más de 40 cursos en los niveles licenciatura y doctorado, y ha dictado más de 250 conferencias.

Fernando Segato

Fernando Segato

Fernando Segato es Profesor Asistente en el Departamento de    Biotecnología de la Escuela de Ingeniería de Lorena en la Universidad de São Paulo, Brasil, con una historia demostrada de trabajo en la industria de la educación superior. Es especializado en bioinformática, ARNi, tecnología de fermentación, biocombustibles y genética. Cuenta con un Ph.D  en Genética y Biología Molecular de la Universidad de Sao Paulo. Su investigación se centra en la prospección de enzimas hidrolíticas y oxidativas aplicadas en la despolimerización de lignocelulosa, la exploración de genomas de hongos termófilos, transcriptomas y proteomas, y la mejor de las fábricas de células fúngicas.

Ana Stewart

Ana Stewart

Anna Stewart-Ibarra, Ph.D, MPA, is the Scientific Director of the InterAmerican Institute for Global Change Research (IAI). She was formerly the Director of the Latin America and Caribbean Research Program of the Institute for Global Health and Translational Science at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University (SUNY UMU) (2012-2019). She is also a voluntary faculty member of the Department of Medicine and Department of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at SUNY UMU.

Dr. Stewart-Ibarra’s research focuses on understanding climate, environment and social drivers of human wellbeing in Latin America and the Caribbean. For more than 12 years, she has collaborated with academic and government institutions in the region to conduct social-ecological, epidemiological and modeling studies. These studies aim to inform the development of climate services for the health sector, community health interventions, and novel vector control tools.

She received her Ph.D in ecology from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and her Masters in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Honors and fellowships include Fulbright in Argentina (2018) and Ecuador (2010-2011), the Prometeo Fellowship of Ecuador (2014-2016), the Emerging Public Policy Leader Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (2009), and the National Science Foundation Graduate STEM Fellowship (2007-2009).

Natacha De Paola

Natacha De Paola

Carol and Ed Kaplan Armour College Dean of Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology. Post Doctorate from Columbia University (Chemical Engineering, 1992), Ph.D. from Harvard-MIT (Medical Engineering/Medical Physics, 1991), M.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mechanical Engineering, 1987), B.S. from Simon Bolivar University, Caracas-Venezuela, (Mechanical Engineering, 1984).

DePaola’s research investigates the role of physical mechanisms on cellular behavior emphasizing its importance in the understanding of human disease, the development of new therapies, and the engineering of functional tissues. A major emphasis of her research is on hemodynamic regulation of vascular cell function in early atherosclerosis, gap junctional intercellular communication, and biophysical regulation of mammalian cell function with applications to vascular, bone and neural tissue engineering.

She received many awards for her work and her role as a leading woman in Engineering. She also holds many patents and copyrights, as well as many renowned scientific publications.

Susan Schneider

Susan Schneider

American professor of philosophy and cognitive science. She holds the NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair at the Library of Congress and NASA; directs the AI, Mind and Society (“AIMS”) Group at the University of Connecticut; and is a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She is also a recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award. Schneider has been featured on television shows on The History Channel, Fox News, PBS and The National Geographic Channel, and in the feature film, Supersapiens: the Rise of the Mind.

Schneider writes about the philosophical nature of the mind and self, especially from the vantage point of issues in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and astrobiology. Topics include radical brain enhancement, spacetime emergence, superintelligence, the nature of life, whether minds are in some sense programs, panpsychism and the nature of persons. Her work in philosophy of AI has now taken her to the Hill (Washington, DC), where she will meet with members of Congress on AI policy and organize educational events for Congress and staffers in conjunction with the Library of Congress on a range of topics, such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, technological unemployment and more.

Jose Luis Guerrero Cusumano

Jose Luis Guerrero Cusumano

Jose-Luis Guerrero-Cusumano is a Tenured Associate Professor at the Georgetown University School of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois and a Master of Sciences in Statistics from the Mathematics Department of the University of Illinois. He is also an Economics Statistician from the School of Economics Science, Rosario University, Argentina. Prof. Guerrero-Cusumano has been a member of the faculty at Georgetown since 1989 in the School of Business. He is also the recipient of the Gold Medal for service at Georgetown University.

Professor Guerrero-Cusumano is the Academic Director of the Corporate International Master’s at the Georgetown University School of Business and former Director of the International Institute on Government, Management, and Policy at Georgetown University.

In 2008, Professor Guerrero-Cusumano was awarded an Honorary Doctorate, Doctor Honoris Causa in Administration by Ovidius University (Romania). Also in 2008, he was elected Fellow at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University, England. In 2017, he was recognized by the International Institute for Applied Knowledge Management with the Fellow & Distinguished Scholar Award. Among his research areas are Big and Small Data, Data Mining, Text Mining, International Business, Social Responsibility, Business Forecasting, Six Sigma and Quality Improvement.

In 2017, he was the Co-Chair of the international conference on Responsible Organizations in the Global Context. He was also the Deputy Director and Executive Editor of the journal Globalization, Competitiveness and Governability, Spain, 2007-2011. Dr. Guerrero-Cusumano has published over fifty articles in leading journals including the Journal of the Operational Research Society.

He speaks seven languages fluently (Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish).

Ignacio de León

Ignacio de León

Ignacio De Leon is an international antitrust, intellectual property and competition policies expert. Project Manager and Entrepreneur on Digital Platform regulation, U.S. Equity crowdfunding, and Blockchain for governance.

He holds a Bachelor of Laws, has multiple Masters in Economics, and has a Ph.D in Competition Law and Economics from the University College London, where he researched the shortcoming of common industrial organization methodology, to analyze the impact of dynamic competition in the market.

He is currently the CEO of IP Passport, a tech startup that develops a Blockchain application to protect intellectual property, confidential information, and trade secrets, and also the Founder and CFO of Citizenz Tech, a company that develops technology applications based in Blockchain to leverage business models of companies, organizations, and governments. De Leon has managed and founded other tech-companies such as these in the past.

Until the end of 2017, he was Lead Specialist on Innovation Policy at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC, where he led IP management programs in Latin America and the Caribbean; research on Digital Platforms and development of blockchain in the music industry.

Boris Monsalve

Boris Monsalve

Boris Monsalve has devoted 25 years of his professional life in providing innovative solutions based on technology to attend to the needs of communities and generate value in an innovative way.

Throughout his career he has worked at leading technology companies in Ecuador, such as Kruger and SAP. He has also worked for SATEC in Spain where he completed a Master’s Degree in Electronic Commerce.

His accomplishments include positioning industry leading manufacturers such as HP and SAP as innovation champions in the Americas, in order to help the country’s digital transformation, making some of the most important projects in Ecuador a reality. Now his responsibility is to bring Kruger throughout Latin America, a process that has been successful so far.

Aline Pina

Aline Pina

Aline Pina is the Co-Founder and Regional Manager OF XRBR | Hub brasileiro de X-Reality.

Previously, she worked as an Augmented Reality Product Manager at Anableps XR, where she coordinated the development of the Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality application for the launch event of the Riachuelo S40 submarine for Itaguaí Construções Navais (ICN) and the Brazilian Navy on December 14, 2018. She also participated in  the creation and insertion of the realistic 3D model of the submarine in Augmented Reality available during the event.

Prior to that, she worked as XR Producer at Experimental VR Bootcamp – Immersive Sensoryities, an artistic museum/residence that explores the limits of the senses by creating immersive and interactive environments developed on devices such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear. Through interactions between field enthusiasts and mentoring with renowned professionals from Brazil, 4 groups were created and each one developed a prototype in Virtual Reality exploring the theme Immersive Sensoryities. These works were then exhibited at the “Museum of Tomorrow” in Rio de Janeiro.

Adriana Páez Pino

Adriana Páez Pino

Adriana Cecilia Paez Pino is the Dean of the School of Exact Sciences and Engineering of the Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Bogota, Colombia. She is also the former President of the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI).

She has various studies in Engineering and Administration, as well as a Doctorate in Education with Specialization in Pedagogical Measurement, from the University of La Salle. She is also candidate for a Ph.D in Telecommunications Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain).

Pino has experience in the academic administrative field, in positions of high responsibility such as Director of Laboratories; Vice Dean of Electronic Engineering and Telecommunications; Founding Director of the Department of Basic Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering; at Sergio Arboleda University (Bogota). She also served as Vice Dean of Engineering and later as Dean of Engineering and Basic Sciences of the University Los Libertadores in Bogota, Colombia.

She has actively participated in different national and international networks, contributing to the strengthening of initiatives and agreements. She contributed to the creation of the Network of Electronic Engineering Faculties REDIE, where she was President and Vice President. She has received several prices and honors, including a nomination for the Best Dean of 2014 from the University of Santo Tomás and Military Medal “San Gabriel” Unique Category, in recognition and testimony of the efficient services provided to military communications.

Patricia Lewin

Patricia Lewin

Patricia Lewin, as Senior Technology Officer, provides direction and support for the development of technology and innovation programmes in meeting the objectives of the National Commission for Science and Technology of Jamaica, a statutory body, which functions as an agency of the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology. She was involved in the technical coordination and facilitation of several government lead programmes and initiatives geared towards enhancing the national science and technology infrastructure while promoting its utilization for improving the quality of life and enhancing economic competitiveness.

Prior to her engagement at the Commission, she worked as a Public Policy Researcher at the Connecticut Community Foundation in Connecticut, USA where she provided provide guidance for the allocation of funding and resources for community development projects. Ms. Lewin has a BSc in Biotechnology from the University of the West Indies, a Masters of Arts in Sustainable Development, with a focus on Development Management from the School for International Training Graduate Institute in Vermont, USA and is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Sustainable Development.

Carlos Andrés Martin

Carlos Andrés Martin

Carlos Martin has 11 years of experience in computational science. He has a tittle as Systems engineer from the Universidad Libre (Colombia) and Specialization of Project Management from Universidad Distrital (Colombia). Most of his experience is about IT infrastructure over cloud environments. Joined Amazon Web Services on 2018, working with customer and partner around new services over the cloud. Over these 11 years he has worked with different kind of platforms and technologies inside the customer and Business partner. Actually, as part of Public sector team his role is have a close relationship with Education institutions and Government agencies knowing their challenges and new projects, working together with them to build the road to the cloud. He really appreciates the opportunity to know new people and cultures, also share his knowledge and experience with their colleagues and customers.  Most of the important things in his profession is learn every day and share that knowledge with more and more people.

Javier Medina

Javier Medina

Javier Medina is Coordinator of the Open Network of Foresight and Innovation of the Ibero-American Programme on Science and Technology for Development (CYTED). He is also Professor since 1993 and former Vice Chancellor for Research at the Universidad del Valle in Colombia.

He served as Head of the National Program on Technological and Industrial Foresight of Colciencias between 2003 and 2007. He also founded the Institute for Foresight, Innovation and Knowledge Management (2007-2012). He is the Former Director of the Office of Research and Postgraduate of the Faculty of Administration (2007-2009) and Former Manager of the Doctorate in Administration (2009). He was also Director of the Office of Planning and Institutional Development of the Universidad del Valle in 2004. Additionally, he is the Founder and Former Director of the Research Group on Forecasting and Strategic Thinking, recognized by Colciencias (with category A), as well as a Senior Researcher recognized by Colciencias.

Medina is the Former Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Administration of the Universidad del Valle. Professor of the Latin American and Caribbean Institute of Economic and Social Planning of ECLAC. Throughout his career, he has participated as a lecturer and researcher in more than 140 events organized by various universities in Latin America and Europe, international organizations and academic networks, and was also a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in technology foresight and competitive intelligence.

As for his academic training, he is a Psychologist with a Masters’ Degree in Business Administration from the Universidad del Valle. He also received his Ph.D in Social Sciences from the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome in 2011. 

Since 1989, he has led more than 50 processes and exercises in foresight in different fields, scientific and technological, educational, cultural, territorial and corporate. He is Author and Co-Author of 125 publications among which figure books, articles in indexed journals, institutional texts and research projects, on topics such as technology foresight, public policies and economics, among others.

Jeffrey Brown

Jeffrey Brown

Jeffrey Brown joined the Bertelsmann Foundation in August of 2015. In his current role, he manages the Foundation’s project streams on the future of work and artificial intelligence. Jeffrey’s research activities include the geopolitical and workforce implications of artificial intelligence and the impact of the future of work on cities and regions in the United States and European Union.

Jeffrey obtained his master’s degree in political science and European studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in May 2015, where he participated in the TransAtlantic Masters program. While studying at UNC-CH and Sciences Po Paris, he completed an internship with the U.S. Department of State in Tbilisi, Georgia, where he analyzed political developments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and implementation of Georgia’s free trade agreement with the European Union. Jeffrey also completed internships with the U.S. Commercial Service in Paris and Lisbon.

Prior to joining the Bertelsmann Foundation, Jeffrey worked in local government elections, international legal compliance and as a university instructor in Besançon, France. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Olaf College. He speaks English, French and Portuguese.

Carolina Torres Ochoa

Carolina Torres Ochoa

Sales & marketing executive, specialized in Commercial Management at regional level and IT companies. Experience with multinational corporations, particularly in the areas of sales, strategic planning and business intelligence.

Carolina Torres has worked as Google Cloud Sales Manager for Emerging Markets at Google and Software Solutions Sales Manager – Financial Services Sector at IBM. Her studies include a Bachelor in Business Administration from Universidad de la Sabana, an M.B.A. from IE Business School and an Advanced Management Program at the China-Europe International Business School (CEIBS).

Lara Medialdea

Lara Medialdea

Lara Medialda works as Project Coordinator at the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation of Argentina. She has been Program Coordinator – Programá tu Futuro from 2014 to 2016, Marketing Coordinator at ProKarma Argentina and Assistant Professor at Universidad del Salvador.

She is Associate Professor of the Summit for Contemporary International Politics directed at graduate students in their fourth year of International Relations.  She also worked at the MSMEs Sub-Secretariat at the Ministry of Production, Science and Technology. She was a researcher at “Founding Research for Public Policies Analysis (FAPPU)” where she analyzed, studied and developed public policy for the City of Buenos Aires.

José Alonso Huerta Cruz

José Alonso Huerta Cruz

Jose Alonso Huerta Cruz is the President of the National Network of State Councils and Organizations of Science and Technology A.C. of Mexico and the General Coordinator of Nodes of the Global MX Network.

He holds a Bachelor in Business Administration, Bachelor of Law, MBA, Master in Economic and Financial Engineering and Master in Applied Public Management with a focus on Strategic Foresight.

He is a specialist in public policies, innovation, scientific and technological development, information technologies, economic development, business strategy, business training, business valuation and advanced electronic signature.

He has an Honorable Mention of Excellence from Tec Milenio University.