Speakers

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 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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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, 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 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 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.