Shields Center for Innovation Virtual Events
Former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift is an accomplished leader in both the public and private sectors and a recognized national voice on education policy, women’s leadership and work/family integration. Today, she serves as a Senior Advisor to Whiteboard Advisors and as an Operating Partner to the Vistria Group as well as founding Cobble Hill Farm Education & Rescue Center. Swift served for fifteen years in state government, including holding the offices of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation and State Senator. Since leaving public office, Swift has held roles as a chief executive officer; a board chair, member and committee chair to public, private and not-for-profit institutions; an adviser to entrepreneurial education companies; and as a partner in a venture capital fund. She serves on a number of boards, including Suburban Propane (SPH), a publicly traded propane distribution company; and of Climb Credit, an alternative student lender. She brings to each new challenge a transformational leadership style, a passion for educational excellence and innovation and deep experience and success in leading mission-focused organizations.
Soundar Srinivasan is the Director of Microsoft’s AI Development and Acceleration Program in the Office of Microsoft’s CTO. The program’s mission is to increase the AI capabilities of Product Groups and develop the next generation of AI leaders at Microsoft. The team works on a variety of AI topics, with a recent focus on Generative AI, including Large Language Models such as GPT. Soundar drew from his experience as the Director of AI Product Challenges at Robert Bosch while he built out the team, including establishing a strong culture of Learning, Diversity, and Inclusion. Soundar obtained a PhD in noise robust speech recognition from the Ohio State University in 2006. Before joining Microsoft, he worked for Robert Bosch LLC in various aspects of machine learning and AI, including leading a central team of experts that provided AI as a service to internal business unit partners and incubating new AI products. On the personal front, he is an avid sports fan and hiker and enjoys the offerings in the New England area with his family.
Drew Calcagno ’11 is a principal at Google Research, focusing on product operations and strategic narratives for the company’s R&D efforts in various forms of artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and more. He’s a former government official and naval officer, having served non-politically at the White House, at the Pentagon, and on a forward-deployed warship. At those posts, he wrote artificial intelligence policy for the Chief Technology Officer of the United States and managed machine learning programs for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. Calcagno graduated from the University of Oxford as a Rotary Scholar, the University of London – SOAS as a Fulbright Scholar, the US Naval Academy with distinction.
Naomi Caselli is the director of AI and Education Initiative at Boston University, where she is working to build research capacity at the university at the intersection of artificial intelligence and education. She also directs the Deaf Center at Boston University, where she does research on deaf education and the development of sign language computing technology.
Kathleen Masterson is a multimedia journalist who has reported on science, environment and agriculture for more than a decade.
Kathleen began her journalism career working at NPR as a producer for the science desk. She edited science and health news and reported on topics including human evolution, air pollution, psychiatric diagnoses and health care policy. In addition, Kathleen produced an NPR series covering universities’ failure to provide justice for campus rapes, which won a Peabody Award.
Kathleen went on to work as an agriculture reporter for Harvest Public Media, a public radio project in the Midwest, and later as an energy/environment reporter for the New England News Collaborative. While working for Vermont Public Radio, she won a national Edward R. Murrow award for her story covering the wave of immigrants fleeing the U.S. to seek asylum in Canada by walking through the woods.
She is driven to tell stories that embrace the intersection of humanity, environment, health and community.
Douglas I. Foy is a founder and CEO of Serrafix Corporation, a strategic consulting firm and business incubator focused on energy, the environment, transportation, and climate change. Prior to launching Serrafix, Doug served as the first Secretary of Commonwealth Development in the administration of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. In leading this “super-Secretariat”, he oversaw the agencies of Transportation, Housing, Environment, and Energy. Before his service in the Romney administration, Doug served for 25 years as the President and CEO of the Conservation Law Foundation, New England’s premier environmental advocacy organization. Doug serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards, including Ameresco, Inc., Renew Energy Partners, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation. Among many awards recognizing his public interest work, Doug has received the President’s Environmental and Conservation Challenge Award (the nation’s highest conservation award), the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University (its highest honor bestowed on a graduate), and the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from the Queen of England. He was a member of the 1968 USA Olympic Rowing Team and the 1969 USA National Rowing Team. Doug graduated from Princeton University as a University Scholar in engineering and physics, attended Cambridge University in England as a Churchill Scholar in geophysics, and graduated from Harvard Law School.
Brian F. Keane is an environment and executive leader, strategic private equity advisor, acclaimed author and engaging public speaker with extensive experience in grassroots and digital organizing. He is an unrivaled expert in clean energy and energy efficiency marketing.
Since 2002 Brian F. Keane has served as the founder and President of SmartPower, a Washington, DC-based renewable energy and energy efficiency outreach and marketing organization. In 2016 Keane co-founded and was named CEO of WeeGreen (www.wee.green), a for-profit, on-line platform that helps sell solar faster, easier, and cheaper. Keane is also a Strategic Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors, a leading global private markets impact investment manager. Pegasus Capital is accredited by the Green Climate Fund and dedicated to fostering sustainable growth while providing attractive returns to investors.
He is the author of the highly acclaimed book, Green Is Good: Save Money, Make Money, and Help Your Community Profit from Clean Energy (Lyons Press, 2012). Keane is a former Presidential Campaign advisor to the late US Senator Paul Tsongas (DMA). He has extensive Capitol Hill experience, having served as a Legislative Assistant to Congressman Les Aspin (D-WI) and as an aide to Congressman Joe Moakley (D-MA).
In 2017, The John Merck Fund, one of the leading environmental foundations in the US, awarded Keane its highest honor, the “Frank Hatch Award for Enlightened Public Service”. SmartPower and Keane have been recognized with numerous awards, including a 2016 and 2010 Clean Air Excellence Award from the Environmental Protection Agency, the coveted Green Power Pilot Award presented by the EPA and the US Department of Energy, four Gold Awards from the Service Industry Advertising Awards (SIAA), and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Circle Award. And for the past two yea
rs, The Wealth & Money Management Awards named SmartPower “The Best Non-Profit Marketing Firm in the US”.
Brian F. Keane is a graduate of The American University in Washington, DC, where he earned a BA in Broadcast Journalism and Political Science. Keane is a past-president of the American University Alumni Association and in 2011 was the recipient of the American University “American Eagle Award”. In 2022 Keane was awarded a Certificate in Sustainable Investing from Harvard Business School Online. Keane serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Vermont-based Clean Energy Group and is a recognized “Business Leader Partner” at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. Keane serves as Co-Chair of the ESG Pillar of the Denton’s Law Firm’s Global Smart Cities & Connected Communities Think Tank. He also serves on the Advisor Board of the National Postdoctoral Association and is a member of theSustainability Advisory Council at the Kogod School of Business at American University. In 2000 Brian F. Keane was Honorably Discharged from the United States Navy Reserve.
Lynn Jolicoeur is a field producer, reporter and editor at WBUR. As field producer, she researches, writes and edits host interview segments and feature stories on a vast array of topics for the signature early-evening news program, All Things Considered. Lynn also reports for the station’s local broadcasts (with some stories airing nationally on NPR, as well). She has developed beats covering mental illness and homelessness. She has reported in depth on efforts to end chronic homelessness, the weaknesses in the system for sheltering and housing people experiencing homelessness, and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the homeless population. Lynn is passionate about reporting on the issue of suicide. In 2015 she produced and reported a 15-part, yearlong series on the suicide crisis. Prior to working at WBUR, Lynn was a television reporter for 18 years – most recently at Boston’s WCVB-TV Channel 5. She covered areas from crime and the justice system to politics, medicine, and social issues.
Lyndia Downie has served as Pine Street Inn’s President & Executive Director since 2000, and on Pine Street’s staff for over 35 years, working in roles throughout the organization. As a result of her leadership and vision, Pine Street is now the largest provider of permanent supportive housing for men and women moving out of homelessness in New England, with 850 units of housing and a major housing expansion underway.
Her collaboration with other key agencies, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the City of Boston has brought the population of unsheltered homeless individuals in Boston to under 4 percent. To place that in context, in San Francisco, a city of similar size and high housing costs, the unsheltered homeless rate is over 50 percent.
A recipient of many leadership awards and recognition, Lyndia is often called upon, both locally and nationally, to offer her insights and expertise into homelessness, its causes and solutions. Lyndia was one of the recipients of the University of Vermont’s 2020 Alumni Association Awards. Lyndia holds an Honorary Doctor of Social Science Degree from Boston College, an Honorary Doctor of Humanities Degree from Framingham State University, an Honorary Doctor of Humanities Degree from New England Law Boston, and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from William James College. Lyndia is a graduate of the University of Vermont.
Rosanne Haggerty is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Community Solutions. She is an internationally recognized leader in developing innovative strategies to end homelessness and strengthen communities. Community Solutions assists communities throughout the U.S and internationally in solving the complex housing problems facing their most vulnerable residents. Their large-scale change initiatives include the 100,000 Homes and Built for Zero Campaigns to end chronic and veteran homelessness, and neighborhood partnerships that bring together local residents and institutions to change the conditions that produce homelessness. Earlier, she founded Common Ground Community, a pioneer in the design and development of supportive housing and research-based practices that end homelessness.
Ms. Haggerty was a Japan Society Public Policy Fellow, and is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Ashoka Senior Fellow, Hunt Alternative Fund Prime Mover and the recipient of honors including the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism from the Rockefeller Foundation, Social Entrepreneur of the year from the Schwab Foundation, Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian Design Museum’s National Design Award and Independent Sector’s John W. Gardner Leadership Award. She is a graduate of Amherst College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Marc Eichenbaum serves as the Special Assistant to the Mayor for Homeless Initiatives. Marc is a licensed attorney who specializes in public policy, strategic communications, and governmental affairs, leading programs to counter racial inequities and drive social impact.
First appointed by Houston Mayor Annise Parker, and subsequently by Mayor Sylvester Turner, Marc manages the City’s involvement in The Way Home, Houston’s globally recognized homeless housing initiative. Since 2012, The Way Home has housed more than 25,000 individuals experiencing homelessness, effectively ending veteran homelessness and reducing overall homelessness by 63%. Marc created the city’s innovative Public Intoxication Team, is at the forefront of developing holistic and effective strategies to reduce encampments and handles a variety of behavioral health issues for the Mayor. Named by Bloomberg Cities as one of “10 Innovators Who are Raising the Bar in the Fight Against COVID-19,” Marc has advised more than 70 cities, from London, England, Perth, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Orlando, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver, on how to create collective-impact, transformative systems to reduce homelessness.
Previously, Marc oversaw external affairs for the City’s Housing and Community Development Department. In addition to successfully advocating for the passage of over 200 pieces of local legislation, Marc worked on a variety of transformational community revitalization and economic development initiatives, creating thousands of jobs and affordable homes.
Marc served on the boards of the Holocaust Museum Houston and Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, as well as leadership committees for the Alley Theatre, Discovery Green, and the Jewish Federation of Houston. From the Texas Senate to the Houston Grand Opera, Marc has received numerous awards and frequently speaks at events across the country. He is a Leadership Houston and New Leaders Council Fellow and is a member of The University of Texas Friars Society.