Faculty Profiles
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Rick Hutley | Program Director and Professor of Practice | rhutley@pacific.edu Program Director, Rick Hutley, is a highly seasoned Information and Communications Technologist (ICT) with a visionary outlook balanced with a practical sense of execution. With 28 years in the telecommunications / IT industry, a former CIO of a global Service Provider, and 14 years of executive consulting experience to the C-suites of the largest corporations in the world as the Vice President of Innovation at Cisco Systems, he is highly experienced in driving business outcomes through the effective use of technology and data. For the last five years he has been assisting major global corporations with their adoption of the Internet of Everything, including Big Data and Analytics. |
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James Hetrick | Assistant Director, Fletcher-Jones Professor in Data Science | jhetrick@pacific.edu Dr. James Hetrick is a professor and former chair of the Physics Department at the University of the Pacific. After finishing his Bachelor's degree in Physics from Case Western Reserve University, he spent 13 months at the South Pole Station in Antarctica studying cosmic rays, the solar wind, the auroras, and the earth's magnetosphere. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in theoretical particle physics and went on to hold postdoctoral research positions at ETH in Zürich, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Arizona, and Washington University in St. Louis, before coming to the University of the Pacific. In 2018, Dr. Hetrick was named a Fletcher-Jones Professor in Data Science. At Pacific, he teaches a wide variety of classes, including Cosmology and The Physics of Music. |
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Anahita Zarei | Associate Professor | azarei@pacific.edu |
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Robert Calvert | Adjunct Professor | rcalvert@pacific.edu As Founder of the Sacramento Makers Academy, a nontraditional STEM school, Dr. Robert Calvert provides an alternative learning environment for young entrepreneurs and makers in grades 6-12. The only maker school in the greater Sacramento area, the academey's focus is technology and fabrication. Students learn programming, robotics, 3D modeling, 2 D design, woodwork, metalwork, and plastic fabrications. Academic coursework is tied in, where possible, to student interests and projects. The academy has expanded to work as a partner with local indpendent charter schools. Robert's research deals with the educational achievment and expectations of foster youth, and how teacher priorities affect standardized test scores. Robert believes that ;earning is most authentic when it involves real problems. |
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Hatinder Chawla | Professor of Practice | hchawla@pacific.edu Hatinder Chawla brings extensive experience in software development in freight logistics, airline reservation and ticketing systems, product quality analytics, customer relationship management, business forecasting and commerce systems while working at American Airlines, Sabre, and Cisco Systems. His areas of interest are in agile software development teams, building highly scalable cloud native systems, and data streaming analytics. He holds a MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, an MS in Computer Science from Texas Tech Lubbock, a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, and a B.E. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, India. |
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Bijoy Bora | Professor of Practice | bbora@pacific.edu Bijoy Bora, is the Senior Vice President, Data Engineering & Strategy at Abzooba Inc, an AI & ML company based out of Silicon Valley. He is an experienced technology professional of more than 27 years in Big data & Cloud engineering, Strategy & Operations in the area of enterprise big data management software and solutions. Bijoy was the co-founder of Zaloni Inc, the data lake company which is one of the pioneer companies that provides an agnostic modern data lake platform software for enterprises. He has industry experience across market verticals having worked with corporates like the Bank of America, South Western Bell, Singtel Optus, IBM and others including Silicon valley startups. Practical knowledge in product driven big data enterprise software and solutions in hadoop, spark and cloud technologies. He was an early contributor in building open source enterprise adaptor frameworks. Bijoy has a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science & Engineering from India and a Masters in Engineering Management from the University of Technology Sydney, in Australia. |
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Dana Nehoran | Lecturer | dnehoran@pacific.edu Dana Nehoran is an industry authority in the management of data-driven engineering programs and a leader in the field of higher education analytics. She came to University of the Pacific after teaching for a number of other universities, most recently at San Jose State University, where she also held the position of Director of Student Success Decision Sciences in the Academic Affairs Division, leading a team that used predictive analytics to enable data-assisted decision making in several student success initiatives around campus. She continues in this role here at Pacific in addition to teaching for the MS in Data Science program and the department of Computer Science. Earlier on, for over two decades, Nehoran held senior management and consulting positions with Fortune 500 companies such as Intel, Cisco, Qualcomm, Philips and Yahoo!, and has taught classes in data science and program management for Silicon Valley companies. Nehoran earned her master's degree in analytics from University of San Francisco. She is also a PMP by the Project Management Institute, SAS certified, and holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. |
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Jeremy Welland| Professor of Practice | jwelland@pacific.edu Dr. Welland has served as an executive, consultant and educator to leaders and employees at some of the world's best organizations for over twenty years. He currently serves as the Global Head, Data & Analytics at PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), a Fortune 200 firm with a $120B market cap, 286 M customers and 22,000 employees. Dr. Welland leads three teams-data warehouse, data science and business intelligence reporting. As a professor of practice with the University of the Pacific's School of Engineering and Computer Science, Dr. Welland teaches "Emphasis Case Studies" in the Data Science Masters Degree Program. Dr. Welland earned his masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan, specializing in statistics and behavioral economics. In previous roles, he has led several teams as a data engineering, analytics, and storytelling expert in customer marketing insights, people analytics, operations research, and financial efficiency and effectiveness studies. He has worked at a large, global management consulting firm, leading analytics and research projects for Fortune 500 clients. Dr. Jeremy Welland currently serves on the board of directors of a large Bay Area non-profit, with fiduciary responsibilities ($100M revenue, 200k clients). He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children. |
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Paul Starrett | Professor of Practice | pstarrett@pacific.edu Paul Starrett, EnCE, CFE, is an attorney and private investigator specializing in high-profile investigations. His consulting firm leverages data-science tools to analyze structured and unstructured data. His 25-year career includes roles as general counsel, chief risk officer and as an information-security software engineer. Paul holds a Master's degree in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation from Golden Gate University. |
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Greg Ruppert | Professor of Practice | gruppert@pacific.edu Greg Ruppert is the Bank Secrecy Act Officer and a Senior Vice President in Charles Schwab Corporation's Corporate Risk Management department. In his role, Greg is the Chief of the Financial Crimes Risk Management group, which encompasses the enterprise-wide BSA/Anti-Money Laundering, OFAC/Sanctions, Fraud Investigations, Cyber Crime Investigations, and Internal Investigation programs of the corporation. Prior to joining Schwab, Greg spent over 17 years with the FBI. In his last assignment, he was a senior executive at FBI Headquarters in Washington D.C. where he oversaw the Cyber Division's efforts to combat the highest priority cyber threats emanating from Asia, Eurasia, Middle East, and Africa. Greg began his FBI career in the Boston Field Office specializing in complex corporate and securities fraud, money laundering, financial crimes, and cyber fraud. He also served on the Enron Task Force as a senior investigator assigned to investigate Enron's CFO and other senior corporate officials. |
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Arun Saksena | Professor of Practice | asaksena@pacific.edu Arun Saksena is the CIO and Digital Transformation Officer for Danaher Corporation's Product Identification (PID) Platform Group. He is based out of Danaher Labs in San Jose, CA. He brings a 33-year career in the fields of Hi-Tech, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Consulting, and Data Science and Analytics. His role at Danaher is to work with the operating company leadership to establish digital strategy and execution for Internet of Things solutions, customer innovation laboratories to uncover requirements, and internal operations to promote aggressive deployment of digital analytics and process improvements across the business. Arun's career spans across industry verticals as a management consultant, technology and professional services executive. Some companies Arun has worked for include Cisco Systems, Accenture, Booz Allen & Hamilton, Procter & Gamble, and KPMG. His customers have included AT&T, Applied Materials, BP, Boeing, Cummins, Ford, IBM, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony, Sprint, TSMC, Unilever, Vodafone and Verizon. Arun has a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from India. He holds a Master's Degree in Operations Research and an M.B.A. in Finance, both from Cornell University, Ithaca NY. He also holds 32 certifications in Digitalization, Data Science and Analytics. |