Leadership
Apereo Staff
Ian Dolphin
Ian has led organizational and technology projects to improve post-secondary education in the United Kingdom, and played a leading role in collaboration with Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Apereo Board
David Ackerman
Dr. David Ackerman currently serves New York University in a dual appointment as Chief Digital Officer and Associate Vice President. As Chief Digital Officer in NYU Libraries and Associate Vice President for Research Technology in NYU IT, David is responsible for the overall global NYU research technology strategy and services. This includes high performance computing, 3D additive fabrication, data services, digital humanities and scholarship support, the Libraries digital strategy, and digital library technology services and preservation.
During his more than 26 years at NYU, David was responsible for the invention and implementation of NYU Home (the enterprise portal); NYU CWIS (campus-wide information system for dissemination of information in electronic form); NYU Web as the first NYU Webmaster (replacing NYU CWIS); the first non-text email system and the migration of it to Google; the first modern day HPC machine to make the top 500 list; the first NYU Abu Dhabi supercomputer; one of the top higher education 3D printing programs in the world; the design and rollout of the NYU Co-op (a next generation computer lab); and establishing and developing the now Peta-scale NYU Digital Library. While at NYU, he has also served as technology consultant to the Soros Foundations, Expert on Mission to the United Nations, and the Founding Chairman of the Board of the New York chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-NY).
Lucy Appert
Lucy Appert is the Director of Educational Technology for New York University's Arts & Science division, where she provides leadership and planning for the effective and strategic use of emerging technologies for the division's three schools. Her areas of special interest include digital literacy, digital humanities, and project-based learning.
Prior to returning to NYU in 2018, Lucy spent almost five years as Associate Director for Instructional Design at Columbia University’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL, formerly CCNMTL) where she led the CTL's innovative project partnerships with faculty using its Design Research methodology. Previously at NYU, she served as Director of Educational Technology for the Liberal Studies Program (LSP), where she led the team providing instructional technology solutions for LSP faculty and students in New York and at NYU’s Global Sites. She was also a faculty member in the program and has more than 20 years of teaching experience, having taught at Tulane, Vanderbilt, and Yale, in addition to NYU. Lucy holds a Ph.D. in 17th & 18th c. British literature from Tulane University and a B.A. in Classics and English from UNC-Chapel Hill.
An active member of the larger educational technology community, she has fostered a number of IT/academic collaborations within both university and open source communities, including chairing the User Reference Group for the original Sakai Open Academic Environment project and coordinating the Apereo newsletter.
Francois Campbell
I am the Teaching, Learning and Portal lead for OpenCollab. As such, Apereo has played a large role in my life. I have been using and supporting Sakai since Sakai 2.7.
My experience has involved institutions of all sizes and shapes. We support higher education in Africa generally and South Africa in particular.
During this time I have been involved with initiatives in the South African sphere of Sakai. Developing tools for Offline Mobile Learning using Sakai for Unisa (Unipoole ) and NWU (eFundi Move).
My role is focused on the hands-on support, maintenance and rejuvenation of Sakai instances for Universities and other centres of Learning. Providing today's digital learner with the best experience possible, while addressing pressing concerns and limitations.
I am excited about the direction Apereo has taken in the last few years. Specifically expanding its outlook and supporting worth while projects which aid the digital learner in these fluid times. My goal is to expand Apereo's footprint in Africa.
Laura Gekeler
Laura has been at the University of Notre Dame since 1998. In 2004 she became Notre Dame’s first LMS Administrator at a time when the service was supported by a single person. She led the original team which implemented Blackboard Vista (WebCT) and integrated it to Banner’s Luminis portal. Later she provided leadership to the design of the evaluation process used to select Sakai. Her knowledge of learning management software extends through its entire lifecyle , especially as related to the changing needs of those who use it. Her responsibilities have included providing leadership to a Blackboard user group, leading faculty workshops, building sustainable documentation and support practices, and marketing and branding the Notre Dame learning management system.
She has been a syndicated blogger on LMS administration, governance, support and staffing topics. Laura holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics. She is a concurrent instructor for the Mendoza College of Business. In her spare time, she’s a Startup Weekend organizer passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship in education technology. She’s a firm believer in scholarly research informing teaching which informs innovation. In addition to her staff position at Notre Dame, she served on the Board of her sons’ K-8 school (2009-2011) where education initiatives such as Indiana Choice, Common Core assessment and preparation mingled with curricular concerns for the next generation’s preparation for 21st century employment.
Mathilde Guérin
Mathilde Guérin has been working at the University of La Rochelle since 2010 where she was responsible for the development and deployment of innovative IT projects (mobile solutions, web portal, etc.). The missions entrusted to her eventually led her to become involved in the ESUP-Portail Consortium, a French organization promoting and developing open-source solutions for higher education. Throughout the years, while coordinating the ESUP-Mobile Working Group, she kept on working on various projects supported or developed by the Consortium which allowed her to have a global view of the Consortium's strategy and activities. At the end of 2014, she was appointed as Technical Director for ESUP-Portail: one of her objectives is to contribute in strengthening the partnership between the Consortium and the Apereo Foundation.
Jim Helwig
Jim Helwig has worked for the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2001, leading technical teams in the areas of portal infrastructure, custom enterprise academic applications and shared development tools. Jim has also played a leadership role within the Apereo (and previously Jasig) community, serving on the board of directors, chairing the uPortal Steering Committee and leading the planning committees for a number of Jasig conferences and events. Jim is a frequent speaker at Apereo and EDUCAUSE conferences. Prior to joining the University, Jim worked in private industry on distributed Internet applications. Jim holds a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Jim continues to be passionate about the benefits institutions of higher education can achieve through collaboratively working on innovative open source solutions addressing common campus needs.
Thierry Koscielniak
Thierry is the Chief Digital Officer at the Conservatoire national des Arts et Métiers in Paris (Le Cnam)
Le Cnam is the only public higher education institution in France dedicated to life long learning and thus continuous learning with a strong activity in distance online courses. The Cnam National Digital Office is in charge of the implementation of courses digitalisation and MOOC production.
During his career Thierry has always been deeply involved in the use and promotion of open source EdTech : Moodle, Sakai, uPortal, Karuta, Mahara, Pod, H5P and others. He believes and is committed in strong international networking and was a presenter at several conferences: JASIG, MoodleMoot, EDUCAUSE, Online Educa Berlin, Integrated System Europe. He is presently the European member of the EDUCAUSE 2019 annual conference Program Committee and member of Karuta Open Source Portfolio Governing Board.
As expert in EdTech in higher education, he performs an active watch and research on digital learning and presently the pedagogical uses of virtual reality and augmented reality. On behalf of Cnam, he is founder of France Immersive Learning skills centre and vice-president of 3FOD, the French forum for digital learning stakeholders.
He is also involved in two associations of digital professionals in higher education: President of CSIESR, a French association, and Secretary of the Board of EUNIS, a European association. He steers a project using Karuta to provide Cnam lifelong learner with an E-portfolio for professional development based on competencies management.
Thierry holds a PhD in chemistry and bioinformatics from Sorbonne University.
Laura McCord
Laura McCord is currently a Senior Technical Lead for Rice University, where she provides technical leadership for student administrative services. Previously she has worked for Southwestern University, University of California Merced, and supported many Universities around the country while working for the private sector. She has over 15 years of multifaceted experience in higher education working in Technology Support, Public Relations, Teaching and Learning, and Administration.
She has been a supporter of the Apereo Foundation for several years and continues to find ways to participate in the foundation. She served as the Documentation Coordinator for the uPortal project, served as the Chair of the Conference Planning Committee and she earned the Apereo Fellow Award in 2013. Today Laura serves on the uPortal Steering Committee. She is passionate about fostering positive relationships and partnerships in the community and her goal is to expand the Friends of Apereo program.
Salvador Pellicer
Salvador is CEO at EDF ( Entornos de Formacion).
Exclusively dedicated to the learning field with new technologies, Salvador works as a general manager at EDF. EDF is an e-learning company established in 2006, working for universities and corporate companies across 3 continents. EDF is involved in Apereo Foundation, working closely as a commercial affiliate for many years.
Salvador’s main goal is focused on Teaching and Learning and how educational technologies can be incorporated effectively.
Prior to EDF, Salvador started in 1995 using computers for education, thus creating a company called Macromoon Multimedia Solutions, where he was the winner of the Möbius Award in edutainment.
His drive for learning with technologies took his business one step further. In the year 2000, Salvador worked in the development of the first Spanish learning management system for the national market, where the results spoke for themselves in the Valencian Government learning department. His work in the project expanded the e-learning formula and he started to manage a new team. As a result, 25 institutions were added to the project, where all infrastructure, software, support and management is centralized in a specialized team that serves around 400.000 users.
The Valencian International University (www.viu.es) proposed an interesting collaborative opportunity where Salvador worked as an IT Educational manager, planning and developing a new online University using open source, in particular Sakai. Since then, Sakai is one of the fundamental technologies used in projects throughout his professional career.
Currently EDF is offering cloud services, as well as support and development in educational technology.
Boeta Pretorius
Boeta Pretorius is the Chief Director of IT at the North-West University. NWU is the second largest University in South Africa and has a mix of campus and distance students. NWU has been a very active and loyal community member of the Sakai-, and now Apereo foundation. Although Sakai, (branded as eFundi at the NWU) is a flagship product at the NWU, other Apereo products like CAS and Matterhorn are also used. NWU is an active member of the Apereo-SA community, and will host the annual Apereo-SA conference in 2018.
I have changed the mission of IT to focus more on the core activities at the University, namely Teaching and Learning, and Research. The Apereo product range forms an integral part of our solutions portfolio to fulfil this mission. I have a long history with the community, and built very good relations and partnerships.
I am also a director of the Association of South African Directors of IT (ASAUDIT) and lead some of the interest groups. As a loyal community member, I am sure I will be able to make a positive difference on the Apereo board.
Matthew Rascoff
Matthew is the Associate Vice Provost for Digital Education and Innovation at Duke University. He was previously Vice President and founder of the Office of Learning Technology & Innovation for the University of North Carolina system, where he worked from 2014-17.
In 2012-13, Matthew launched JSTOR’s first international office in Berlin, where he was also a Fellow of the Bertelsmann Foundation and a strategic advisor to the Robert Bosch Foundation. He previously led product management teams at Wireless Generation, an education technology company (acquired by News Corporation in 2010 and renamed Amplify). In 2011, he built and launched Wireless Generation’s product development center in Durham, North Carolina.
Earlier in his career Matthew helped launch the strategy group at ITHAKA, an incubator of higher education technology ventures (now Ithaka S+R). Matthew’s experience includes Google, where he worked on the Book Search operations team, and Katzenbach Partners, a strategy consulting firm. After undergraduate studies at Columbia University he did graduate work at Bogazici University in Istanbul on a Fulbright Scholarship. He also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and represented the state of North Carolina as a German Marshall Memorial Fellow in 2013.
Jeremy Rosenberg
Jeremy has managed the Identity and Access Management program at UC Berkeley since 2014. Before that he held a similar position at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. Jeremy learned to program in 2004 and has contributed to a number of open source projects over the years. As a developer at Simon Fraser University he helped modernize the identity management system and improve the usability of identity services for staff, faculty and students alike.
Jeremy has an MBA in Management of Technology from the Segal School of Business in Vancouver and loves using his skills to help advance the mission of higher education. He is passionate about the role of open source software and seeks to enable open source solutions to continue to compete with commercial offerings for the attention of higher ed technologists. Jeremy is especially interested in championing the CAS Central Authentication Service as a core component of a modern identity and access solution.
Anne-Marie Scott
Anne-Marie Scott is the Deputy Director of the Learning, Teaching and Web Services Directorate at the University of Edinburgh. She has been at the University of Edinburgh since 2002 and was responsible for the selection and development of uPortal as the University enterprise portal platform in 2004. She is an expert in enterprise systems – in addition to implementing uPortal, she led a multi-year project to replace the University Identity Management system, moving operations to a real-time SOA based architecture. The solution delivered was a blend of open source solutions (Grouper, OpenLDAP) and bespoke development.
Since 2011 she has been focused on the University’s learning technology provision, developing strategy and leading large institutional change projects that enhance the student learning experience. She is responsible for the provision of all the centrally provided VLE, eAssessment, ePortfolio and media services in the institution. She has a keen interest in learning analytics, developing policy, undertaking some of the early analysis of data from MOOC platforms, and more recently supporting the inclusion of OnTask into the Apereo Incubation process. Current projects include the rollout of lecture recording into 400 teaching spaces; the adoption of WordPress as an institutional blogging platform, including a Domain of One’s Own service; and a pilot of Jupyter Notebooks to support computational learning.
She is passionate about student co-creation of educational technology services through high value internship opportunities. She has a commitment to open source and open practices more generally – including championing the adoption of open source solutions, open licenses and working closely with the University Wikimedian in Residence.
She holds and MA in English and Scottish Literature and a PG Dip in e-Learning, both from Edinburgh. She volunteers for Girl Geek Scotland as part of the leadership team, supporting women in tech roles within the Scottish IT sector, and has more than a decade of board experience as a Trustee of a building preservation trust.