External Advisory Council

The Computer Science External Advisory Council was formed in 2010 to assist the department in the following ways:

Gain insight and offer input into the mission, programs, and activities of the department;
Facilitate the department in establishing mutually beneficial partnerships with individuals and corporations;
Actively participate in department fund raising efforts;
Assist in identifying and prioritizing resource needs of the department;
Participate in EAC online discussions and attend the annual on-campus caucus to be held each Spring;
Represent the department to the ISU community at large as well as to external organizations

	Rebecca Taylor (EAC Chair 2025-26) has invented and patented mobile device technologies, and started and advised several startup companies. The Iowa State University computer science graduate now serves the U.S. Department of State as a senior adviser, innovation and entrepreneurship, in the Office of Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State. Taylor is president of Taylor-Deininger Partners Inc., a consultancy focused on advising senior executives and board members on strategic issues relating to technology manufacturing and design operations, new market opportunities, and intellectual property portfolio development. Taylor earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State in 1984. She also holds a master's degree in public affairs from the University of Texas' LBJ School.
	Karthik Balakrishnan is the global Chief Data & Analytics Officer (CDAO) at Principal Financial Group. In this role, he is responsible for modernizing Principal's data/analytics strategy, culture, execution, and establishing best practices for AI, analytics, data management, and data governance. Prior to joining Principal in 2021, Karthik was senior vice president at Verisk, one of the largest analytics pure-play companies in the world. In that role, he had full P&L responsibility for their loT/Telematics business including sales, product development, technology, data science, and data management functions. Karthik has 25 years of experience developing and leading data/analytics and product functions at Verisk, Allstate Insurance, and Fireman's Fund/Allianz Insurance Company. He has also worked at two start-up companies, including one as President and CEO. Karthik earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Iowa State University, specializing in AI. He has over 40 trade and research publications and a book on Intelligent Agents from MIT Press. He is an active speaker and contributor to conferences and industry events.
	Matt Good currently serves as the Chief Technology Evangelist for Kingland and is responsible for leading technology enablement and delivering confidence for Kingland’s integral enterprise software clients. An Iowa State University graduate in both Computer Science and Music, Matt has gained a variety of enterprise software experiences at Kingland, IBM and SPSS. Throughout the first half of his software career, he was focused on architecting and engineering software solutions and leading teams focused on compliance, risk management, predictive analytics, AI-based enterprise data management automation, workflow and rules data management governance, and brokerage web and reporting applications. More recently, Matt’s career has been directly focused on Kingland’s clients, enabling them for enterprise software business value and successful outcomes throughout their partnership with Kingland – all accomplished through his involvement in product management, sales engineering, and client solution architecture. Personally, Matt has continued to enhance the music passion he gained through his degree in Music from Iowa State through continued practice, teaching, and volunteer opportunities.
	John Gustafson is currently the Chief Scientist of Vq Research Inc., and a Visiting Scholar at Arizona State University. Previously he served as the Senior Fellow and Chief Product Architect for AMD, and as research director for Intel Research. John is well known in High Performance Computing (HPC), having introduced the first commercial cluster system in 1985 and having first demonstrated 1000x, scalable parallel performance on real applications in 1988, for which he won the inaugural Gordon Bell Award. He received the IEEE Computer Society's Golden Core Award in 2007. John is the inventor of Gustafson's Law, which proved that parallelism among processors can solve larger problems. He also played a critical role in the ABC reconstruction project at ISU.
	Michelle M. Miller is a passionate healthcare IT executive with over 25 years of experience innovating, leading, developing, designing, and executing on a vision to transform healthcare and enable interoperability via HL7 FHIR standards. Currently, Michelle is the Senior Director of Clinical Data Interoperability at Optum, which is part of the UnitedHealth Group family of businesses. She leads an elite team focused on clinical data interoperability necessary to get the right data to the right place at the right time with minimized costs in order to achieve better health outcomes. Prior to joining Optum, Michelle led Cerner’s data strategy on its cloud-based big data platform, which aggregates data from disparate source systems across the continuum of care in order to create a longitudinal person record, enabling decision support, quality measurement and analytics for population management. Michelle holds multiple critical care patents. She makes an impact on interoperability serving as HL7 International Patient Care Co-Chair for the past 11 years. Michelle is also a certified Crucial Conversations facilitator. Michelle is a graduate of Iowa State University and has a Bachelor of Science in computer science. She has served a 5-year term on the ISU Alumni Association Board of Directors and was a member of the ISU Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECpE) external advisory board. She was awarded the ISU 2006 Outstanding Young Alumni Award.
	Tom Miller has a long career in computing, including designing Microsoft's NTFS file system and implementing it in a small team for the first version of Windows NT (now Windows 7). He also designed and implemented the Windows Cache Manager. He is currently working on an advanced file system incubation project. He has been an avid supporter of Save the Children for over 20 years, and has visited programs in Azerbaijan and Georgia, Myanmar (Burma), and Malawi. He recently participated in a Jimmy Carter Habitat for the Humanities build in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
	Rajesh Parekh is Vice President of AI/ML at Intuit, where he leverages the latest AI research advances to develop innovative new AI products and capabilities that power delightful customer experiences and drive measurable business impact. Prior to Intuit, Dr. Parekh was Director of Engineering at Google, where he led teams building large-scale computer vision and machine learning systems to create a highly accurate digital model of the real world. This geospatial model powers key Google products including Maps, Local Search, Ads, and Automotive Services. His work helped unlock the value of Google’s geospatial data assets, contributing over $1B in incremental Local Ads revenue. Before Google, Dr. Parekh led Data Science and Analytics at Facebook (now Meta) for Applied Machine Learning and Video initiatives, where he played a key role in launching and scaling Facebook Live. He has also held leadership roles managing global engineering and data science teams at Groupon and Yahoo!. Earlier in his career, he developed data mining products for e-commerce at Blue Martini and advanced data science solutions for insurance at Allstate. Dr. Parekh earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence from Iowa State University. He remains active in the academic community, delivering keynote talks, serving on organizing committees for leading international conferences, authoring more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, and filing multiple patents.
	John Paule (past EAC Chair 2023-25) is an accomplished and successful corporate and community leader. He has built strong general management skills with specific expertise in information technology, sales, marketing, and financial management. After 19 years with IBM in various sales and marketing management roles, John retired as Executive Vice President with FBL Financial Group. As a Certified Director and Leadership Fellow with the National Association of Corporate Directors, John currently serves as lead director for the Homesteaders Life Insurance Company Board of Directors, Board Chair for DICA and an independent director for Oxen Technologies. As a community leader John served as past president of the following organizations: West Des Moines Board of Education, West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, West Des Moines Rotary, and Hospice of Central Iowa. John currently serves as a member and past chair of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council.
	Sarah Schinckel is the director of emerging technologies and architecture in the Intelligent Solutions Group (ISG) at John Deere. Her team sets the technical vision for future products and helps the organization achieve that vision through design, research, and prototyping. Sarah has over 20 years of experience in software and technology and has worked in a variety of roles across development, systems engineering, and engineering management. Sarah earned her bachelor's degree in computer science and a master's degree in engineering management from Iowa State University and has graduate certificates from Iowa State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
	Greg Shannon is the Chief Scientist for the CERT® Division at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, expanding cyber security research, advancing national and international research agendas, and promoting efficient cyber security. Shannon serves on the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. He recently served in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy as the Assistant Director for Cyber security Strategy and led the development of the 2016 Federal Cyber security Research and Development Strategic Plan. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on cyber security, science for security, critical infrastructure, resilience, and cyber threats. Shannon received a BS in Computer Science from Iowa State University with minors in mathematics, economics, and statistics. He earned his MS and PhD in Computer Sciences at Purdue University, with a Packard Foundation fellowship. He is a member of the ACM and a Senior Member of IEEE
	Kevin Shekleton is a polyglot technologist, having worked in a wide variety of systems throughout his career. He is currently the Chief Architect and Distinguished Engineer at Cerner, a healthcare software IT company now part of Oracle. At Cerner, is responsible for Cerner's architecture and platforms. Kevin earned his BS in Computer Science from Iowa State University. He currently serves as a board member of Northland CAPS, a non-profit that helps connect high school students to industry professionals in order to provide a real-world learning experience. He is passionate about technology, security, and open source.
	George Strawn (past EAC Chair 2010-22) is a former Department Chair of Computer Science, Director of the Computation Center at ISU, Professor. He then spent a number of years in various positions at NSF, that last of which was on detail to OSTP as co-chair of the Networking and IT Research and Development (NITRD) subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council and also as director of the National Coordination Office, which staffs the NITRD subcommittee. After retiring from NSF, he recently became board director for the National Academies' Board on Research Data and Information.
	Jeremy Thompson has had a long career in technology doing consulting, design, and development of solutions for companies that range from startups to Fortune 500 companies around the world. He currently works as Technology Strategy Manager for Ford Motor Company.
	Ron Wolf has been a Technology Executive for the past 20 years, and hands on practitioner in 8 San Francisco Bay Area startups as well as for dozens of consulting clients ranging from the Fortune 100 to raw startups with big ideas. Specializing in team building and in creating database, Middleware, Web (SOA & SAAS), and IT Management products, Ron turns new architectural possibilities into products with real value.