Clark Aldrich
Author of Learning By Doing and Simulations and the Future of Learning

Clark Aldrich has been called an E-Learning Guru by Fortune Magazine, Visionary of the Industry by Training Magazine, and a member of Training's New Guard by the American Society of Training and Development for his work as an Iinternational E-Learning and educational simulation designer, analyst, and consultant. At any given time, he is involved in between two and four medium and long-term projects, that each significantly advance the formal learning industries. He has served dozens of Global 1000 and E-Learning clients. He was the lead designer of SimuLearn's Virtual Leader (Best Online Product of the Year, T+D magazine, 2004), and author of hundreds of articles, chapters, keynotes, reports, and columns, as well as the books Simulations and the Future of Learning (Wiley, 2004) and Learning by Doing: A Comprehensive Guide to Simulations, Computer Games, and Pedagogy in E-Learning and other Educational Experiences (Wiley, 2005). Mr. Aldrich has been interviewed as a subject matter expert by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNET, Business 2.0, CNNfn, U.S. News and World Reports, and others on E-Learning and simulations. Previously, he was the research director that had created and was topic leader for Gartner Group's E-Learning coverage.

Tamara L. Christensen
Director, Online Learning ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

Tamara L. Christensen, has many years of experience creating business solutions and organizing business processes by combining technology and adult learning concepts with a focus on customer satisfaction.

Colleen Dietz
Associate Director of the Center for Learning, University of Southern California

Colleen Dietz is the Associate Director of the Center for Learning at the University of Southern California. In this capacity she is responsible for ensuring the academic integrity of all courses that are designed for delivery in a fully or partial online environment. Colleen has overseen the conversion of several courses at the graduate and undergraduate level as well as consulted with project managers of many more academic programs. Prior to this position, Colleen was in the USC School of Business developing and delivering certificate programs customized for the corporate sector. Many of these were online and for work teams, requiring that the lessons be applicable. Colleen is currently completing her Masters in Online Learning and Teaching from Cal State Hayward. She earned a Bachelors Degree in Journalism from USC. She has worked at USC for more than 25 years, having started there as a student.

Kathleen Gilroy
Founder and CEO of The Otter Group

Kathleen Gilroy has been working for 20 years revolutionizing the use of new communications technologies for professional education. She is the founder and CEO of The Otter Group, a company that designs, builds, and manages E-Learning programs and high performance learning and information networks for the world's most prestigious corporate and academic universities.

Since 1985 Ms. Gilroy has developed electronic education programs for over 100,000 professional learners. Her programs, across many subject areas, have received consistently high marks from their participants. She was responsible for developing Harvard Business School's first E-Learning program, Achieving Breakthrough Service (1992), which was seen by over 7,000 HBS alumni and colleagues. In 1995, Ms. Gilroy developed the first E-Learning program on e-commerce, Competing in the Marketspace. She has worked with leading figures in academia, science, politics, and journalism, including Peter Drucker, Andrew Lo, William Sahlman, William Ury, Len Schlesinger, Earl Sasser, James Heskett, Mark Moore, Martin Linksy, Deborah Ancona, Jeffrey Rayport, Henry Kendall, Joseph Nye, Joseph Wiesner, and Richard Garwin. 

Through her extensive direct experience in the field of E-Learning, Ms. Gilroy has developed a highly regarded methodology for online teaching and learning that emphasizes peer-to-peer learning. She believes the best programs have their foundation in highly effective learning networks. Her model includes personalization through complex profiling and polling and peer-to-peer blog networks as the technology platform.

Tony Karrer, Ph.D.
CEO/CTO TechEmpower, Inc.

Dr. Tony Karrer is considered one of the top technologists in E-Learning and Performance Support and is particularly known for his consulting, writing and speaking on ePerformance. He has fifteen years experience leading development of software designed to improve human performance. Dr. Karrer also has eleven years experience as an associate professor of Computer Science. He has been the chief technologist for three web start-up companies. He has a broad technical background that ranges from data mining to radar software. His work in E-Learning and Performance Support has won awards and has led him into engagements at many Fortune 500 companies including Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse. Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, and attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at both industry and academic events.

Mark Shimada
Program Manager, The Boeing Leadership Center

Mark Shimada has spent over 25 years helping individuals, organizations, and teams to envision and actualize compelling new possibilities that stir the heart. He has presented and performed at events ranging from the 2004 ArtSpace7 digital media festival, the Academy of Management's 2003 New Technologies Exposition, most recently at 2005 AIGA's Experience Design Conference in Seattle, WA, and at various local and national Training Events and Conferences.

In his current career, Mark has contributed to the Boeing Leadership Center's esteemed rating among US corporate leadership universities, designing cutting-edge, award-winning, and authentic experiences for Managers to shape their futures. He is passionately involved in the design and implementation of an innovative technology product for dynamic learning to support the next generation of leadership programs for first and mid-level managers.

Vicki Suter
Director, iCohere

Vicki Suter leads iCohere's higher education client services activities. Vicki consults with educational institutions, nonprofits and associations focused on community-oriented collaboration. She also develops, designs and facilitates online conferences and workshops, and helps design and support online communities of practice. Vicki's first contact with iCohere was as a major association client in 2004; as Director of National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) Projects for EDUCAUSE, she used iCohere's software extensively for two NLII virtual communities of practice, as virtual team environment for NLII staff, and for online workshops. As Director at NLII for six years, she was responsible for NLII member services and coordination, including the design, development and facilitation of six virtual communities of practice. In addition, she was responsible for developing a professional development program that included an annual conference, three day-long workshops and a number of online conferences and events. She possesses over twenty years experience in coordinating technical projects and programs and working in the areas of telecommuting, community networking, distance education, and E-Learning. She is currently a doctoral student in the Educational Technology program at Pepperdine University.

Nancy White
Founder of Full Circle Associates

Founder of Full Circle Associates, a communications consultancy, Nancy helps non-profits and businesses connect through online and offline strategies. She is recognized for her leadership and expertise in the emerging field of online group facilitation and interaction. She is a skilled online interaction designer, facilitator and coach for distributed communities of practice, online learning, distributed teams and virtual communities. Nancy presents internationally and was an early writer and collector of online facilitation resources. She teaches the original online workshop, Facilitating Online Interaction, since 1999 and hosts the respected Online Facilitation email list. Since 2004 she has been blogging at www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm.