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Announcing the winners of the 2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Banner for the EdScoop 50 Awards
(Scoop News Group)

Scoop News Group is thrilled to announce the winners of the EdScoop 50 Awards.

The awards, in their first year, honor the most influential people in the higher education technology community, along with the most innovative projects that make a positive impact across universities.

Built on the model of other Scoop News Group awards — like the FedScoop 50, StateScoop 50 and CyberScoop 50 — the EdScoop 50 Awards recognize achievements between July 2021 and July 2022.

Starting in July, members of the higher education IT community nominated more than 200 leaders and projects for the awards. The EdScoop team narrowed the list to the top 80, and readers cast more than 200,000 votes to select this year’s winners.

“The EdScoop 50 Awards are all about recognizing the higher education community in a new way,” said Jake Williams, the vice president of content and community of StateScoop and EdScoop. “Institutions have been forever changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and these awards recognize the class of leaders who lead that change and are charting the path forward for universities.”

This year’s winners represent 40 institutions, two university systems, seven private sector companies and one professional organization. From large public universities to community colleges, the awards recognize people and projects at several different sizes and geographically across the entire country.

The winners:

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Jon Allen

Chief Information Officer, Baylor University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Jon Allen is the chief information officer and chief information security officer at Baylor University. Allen is a leader for the HECVAT project for cloud security and deeply involved in the Internet2 Cloud Scorecard, NET+ Splunk program, and the EDUCAUSE Higher Education Information Security Council. Allen also regularly presents at conferences, program committees, and other activities in the community. All together, these activities spurn collaboration for the benefit of the community to make it more efficient and effective.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Lucy Avetisyan

Associate Vice Chancellor & CIO, University of California Los Angeles

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Lucy Avetisyan, Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer at the University of California Los Angeles, is an experienced change leader known for building high-performance teams and achieving results to support the university’s missions of education, research, and service. She is leading the strategy for IT at UCLA — the nation’s number one public university — by overseeing the Digital Campus Road Map, a vision of technology’s role in transforming and improving the constituent experience at UCLA. Under her guidance, IT Services is prioritizing exceptional customer service, employee growth and fulfillment, and the technology enablement of the university’s continued success.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Showkat Choudhury

Chief Information Officer, Central State University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Showkat Choudhury is the chief information officer at Central State University. Choudhury works tirelessly to keep data security and privacy top of mind across the university by maintaining consistent communication with the campus community and emphasizing the importance of protecting students’ data. Recently, he spearheaded a major initiative to further safeguard sensitive data. Central State University now leverages encryption technology that empowers university personnel — from medical departments and administrative offices to the athletics program and beyond — to protect sensitive data while sharing it as needed.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Virginia Evans

Vice President & CIO, University of Virginia

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Virginia Evans is the vice president and chief information officer at the University of Virginia, where she is responsible for planning and delivering central IT infrastructure, applications, IT support, and information security and IT policy, as well as research computing for the university. Evans has more than 35 years of IT experience, ranging from IT consulting with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and independent IT consulting, to 30 years managing IT at the University of Virginia at both the central and school levels. She is an active participant in national IT organizations of large research universities — CSG (Common Solutions Group) and RUCC (Research University CIO group), as well as Internet2.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Lev Gonick

Chief Information Officer, Arizona State University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Lev Gonick is Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University, where he has worked since 2017. Previously, Gonick was the CIO at case Western Reserve University. He’s also the co-founder and CEO of DigitalC, an award-winning non-profit organization enabling and celebrating innovation, collaboration, and productivity through next generation broadband networks, big open data solutions, and IoT for public benefit.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Daniel Greenstein

Chancellor, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Chancellor Daniel Greenstein is leading the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education on an ambitious multi-year, system-wide technological transformation to align and synchronize its 14 institutions. With more than 93,000 students, PASSHE is facing challenges seen across higher education and embracing institution integrations is a critical step to expanding student opportunities and improving affordability.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Matthew Hall

Vice President for IT & CIO, University of Central Florida

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Matthew Hall is the University of Central Florida’s Vice President for information technology and chief information officer. He has been in the role since early 2021. Previously, Hall was the Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Cyber Risk Responsible Executive at the University of California Santa Barbara. Before that, Hall held positions at Koch Industries International, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Vanderbilt University. He also held sworn law enforcement positions at both the Williamson County, Tennessee, Sheriff’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Daren Hubbard

Vice President for IT & CIO, Georgia Tech

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Daren Hubbard joined Georgia Tech as its vice president of information technology and chief information officer in 2020. In this role, he provides vision, leadership, and oversight in the development and implementation of information technology. He is also responsible for establishing the strategic direction of how the university handles its information technology resources. Hubbard has more than 20 years of experience in higher education.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Kimberley Marshall

Vice President & CIO, Morehouse College

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Kimberley Marshall is the vice president and chief information officer for Morehouse College. Marshall is an experienced leader and expert in multiple sectors of the information technology field. She has a background in higher education and more than 20 years of experience as both an instructor and as an administrator at six different colleges and universities in the southeastern United States. Marshall is noted for her work leading pivotal strategic initiatives and for her success in integrating technology platforms by leveraging diverse design and development theories. In just a few years at Morehouse, Dr. Marshall saved the college nearly $1 million by renegotiating preexisting contracts and has generated additional cost reductions by migrating the school to a virtualized server environment. She has also dramatically increased network uptime from 60% to 99.9%.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Tony Moore

Chief Information Officer, Prairie View A&M University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Tony Moore was selected in 2019 to serve as Prairie View A&M University’s Chief Information Officer. He has been a leader in higher education technology over the past 15 years. As the PVAMU CIO, Moore provides the overall vision and leadership in formulating innovative solutions and programs that support the university’s mission and strategic goals. He has over 24 years of leading change and organizational transformation in various business environments.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Paul Nagy

Vice President for Strategic Planning and Analysis, Hillsborough Community College

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Paul Nagy is a transformational data and technology leader. Over the last year at Hillsborough Community College, Nagy has implemented and refined both the near-grad and auto-grad programs. The college’s chatbot, Gwen, reaches out to “near-grads” who stopped attending with fewer than 15 credits away from a degree. In the chatbot’s pilot program, 61 students finished their degrees after receiving text messages from the chatbot. The auto-grad program automates the graduation process for students who have fulfilled requirements but never formally applied for graduation. This program now accounts for over 28% of all degree and certificate graduates.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Olga Osaghae

Chief Information Officer, Howard University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Olga Osaghae is the associate vice president and chief information officer at Howard University. Osaghae previously served as the director of enterprise applications, and in several other roles before taking over as interim CIO and eventually permanent CIO for the university. Osaghae is responsible for all aspects of information technology and digital transformation for the university.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Sam Segran

Chief Information Officer, Texas Tech University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Sam Segran is the chief information officer and vice president for information technology at Texas Tech University. Segran is responsible for all information technology operations and management for Texas Tech. He has served in a variety of roles at the university over the last 20 years. He has been in the information technology field since 1985 after an initial career as a member of a flight crew in the international airline industry.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Jerry Sheehan

Chief Information Officer, San Diego State University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Jerry Sheehan is the chief information officer of San Diego State University. Sheehan holds more than 25 years of experience serving as an information technology executive in various sectors. He was Sheehan previously the vice president and CIO at Montana State University where he provided leadership, oversight, management and strategic planning for the university’s information technology infrastructure.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Saby Waraich

Chief Information Officer, Clackamas Community College

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Saby Waraich is the chief information officer for Clackamas Community College. For the duration of his tenure as the CIO, he has consistently elevated both innovative initiatives and system enhancements for the betterment of the students, employees and the broader college. Waraich has been instrumental in leading and building the college’s information security roadmap, which has delivered key services such as phishing awareness simulation and education, 24x7x365 SOC services, and information security policies.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Charles Welch

President, Arkansas State University System

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Charles Welch is the president of the Arkansas State University System. As president, Welch oversaw an initiative to align the Arkansas State University System institutions through a shared technology platform, with the objective of increasing the percentage of Arkansans with a college credential. More than 35,000 students across seven institutions are now powered by a single technology environment supporting centralized IT services. This initiative increased online services for students, simplified mobility for students across institutions, and automated processes to accomplish business more efficiently.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Melissa Woo

Executive Vice President for Administration & CIO, Michigan State University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Melissa Woo is the executive vice president for administration, providing leadership for enterprise-wide administrative services including University Infrastructure planning and facilities, human resources, procurement & logistics, university stores, campus mail services, sustainability, and real estate. Additionally, Melissa serves as MSU’s chief information officer, and as president of the MSU Foundation. Woo previously served in IT leadership roles at Stony Brook University, the University of Oregon, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Ron Woody

Chief Information Officer, Eastern Michigan University

Higher Education IT Executive of the Year

Ron Woody is the chief information officer of Eastern Michigan University, and the director of the Division of Information Technology. Woody has spent 22 years at the university, and has been the CIO for the last five. In addition to serving as the university’s technology lead, Woody also serves on the University Leadership Council.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Donna Amrhein

Director of Business Services - IT Services, Miami University of Ohio

University Technology Leader of the Year

Donna Amrhein is the director of business services in Miami University of Ohio’s IT office. Amrhein has been at the university since 2005, holding a variety of positions in the information technology office. Amrhein serves on the information technology leadership team and has responsibility for budget management, contract and vendor management, Human Resources, administrative support and university operations.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Gary Bertoline

Senior Vice President for Purdue Online & Learning Innovation, Purdue University

University Technology Leader of the Year

Gary Bertoline is the senior vice president for Purdue Online & Learning Innovation and a Distinguished Professor of Computer Graphics Technology and Computer & Information Technology at Purdue University. In this role, Bertoline leads the operations of Purdue Online. Previously, he worked as the associate dean for graduate programs in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Tom Bilbruck

Associate Dean for Student Financial Services, College of the Canyons

University Technology Leader of the Year

Tom Bilbruck is the associate dean for student financial services at College of the Canyons. Bilbruck is an innovative leader using cutting-edge technology to increase access to higher education for underserved populations. He led the initiative to improve processing and awarding of aid to first-generation and low-income students, partnering with ASR Analytics to implement a cloud solution supporting institutional financial aid processing and California Student Centered Funding formula requirements.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Melanie Boynton

Director of Enterprise Systems and Data Intelligence, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College

University Technology Leader of the Year

Melanie Boynton is the director of enterprise systems and data intelligence at J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College, part of the Virginia Community College System. Boynton was tasked with providing data insights to leadership at J. Sargeant Reynolds to support student outcomes. Now, by gathering data from multiple campuses and creating systemwide dashboards, the JSRCC administration has data at their fingertips using SAS Analytics.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

George Finney

Chief Information Security Officer, Southern Methodist University

University Technology Leader of the Year

George Finney is the chief information security officer at Southern Methodist University. As the university’s CISO, Finney has built a world-class security culture at SMU by utilizing fun and informative security awareness campaigns, community building activities and mentoring. He is also an award-winning author on information security and zero trust concepts that provide guidance in an easy to understand and fun way.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Laura Hendley

Assistant Provost for Educational Innovation, University of Illinois

University Technology Leader of the Year

Laura Hendley is the assistant provost for education innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hendley is involved in shaping campus strategy and providing campus-wide support for innovations in classroom and online education. She assists academic units with the development of new types of educational programs, especially online programs, guiding campus policies around online programs, and promoting the use of data-driven research and analytics to improve student learning outcomes.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Bill Hunkapiller

Chief Information Security Officer, Florida State University

University Technology Leader of the Year

Bill Hunkapiller is the chief information security officer of Florida State University. In this role, Hunkapiller leads the information security and privacy office at FSU — an office made up of a security architecture team, a security operations team and a risk, compliance and privacy team. Throughout his career, Bill has accumulated over 25 years of IT security, privacy, governance, risk and compliance experience in the private and public sectors.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Thulasi Kumar

Associate Vice Provost for Analytics and Institutional Effectiveness, Virginia Tech

University Technology Leader of the Year

Thulasi Kumar is the associate vice provost for analytics and institutional effectiveness at Virginia Tech. Throughout his tenure in higher education, and specifically in institutional research, Kumar has embedded analytics into reporting and decision making for institutions across the country. At Virginia Tech, Kumar’s team is focused on putting data in the hands of decision-makers across campus through their analytics portal known as the “University Data Commons.” With an innovative eye for moving beyond dashboarding and utilizing predictive analytics, the Institution Research team at Virginia Tech is using cloud infrastructure to modernize and scale at the university.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Alan Kurk

Chief Information Officer - AgriLife, Texas A&M University

University Technology Leader of the Year

Alan Kurk is the chief information officer for Texas A&M University AgriLife. Kurk is the longest-tenured CIO within the Texas A&M System, and led Texas A&M AgriLife IT operations into the cloud in 2014. Under Kurk’s leadership, by 2020 AgriLife IT had moved 99 percent of all operations into the cloud, reducing capital IT infrastructure costs by 90 percent. Kurk also developed a strategy to automate more than 95 percent of all IT processes including employee on/off boarding and self-monitoring and corrective automation technologies for various services.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

William Latham

Chief Student Development and Success Officer, University of the District of Columbia

University Technology Leader of the Year

William Latham is the chief student development and success officer for the University of the District of Columbia. Latham oversees the Division of Student Affairs that works to engage all students in meaningful co-curricular programs and experiential learning opportunities to promote retention and persistence toward graduation. The Division of Student Affairs enhances programs and services that optimizes student learning & leadership and builds a supportive and welcoming campus community while fostering emotional growth and personal development of students, thus providing a positive contribution to the overall student experience.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Stan Mierzwa

Assistant Director - Center for Cybersecurity, Kean University

University Technology Leader of the Year

Stan Mierzwa is an assistant director and lecturer for Kean University’s Center for Cybersecurity. Kean University was designated in 2022 as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense by the National Security Agency for its academic programs, outreach, and collaborations to address a growing national crisis of a shortage of trained cybersecurity professionals in the workforce. Kean’s NSA CAE-CD designation initiative was led by Mierzwa. This validation will help the university further its efforts to develop and expand its cybersecurity programs, aiming to provide greater opportunities for our students and graduates in this growing field. Mierzwa continues to involve students in programs such as a summer cybersecurity micro certification study group, adding more value to their toolboxes.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Sue Mukherjee

Executive Director of Enrollment Management, Information Technology & Special Projects, Cheyney University

University Technology Leader of the Year

Sue Mukherjee is the executive director of enrollment management, information technology and special projects at Cheyney University. Mukherjee provides leadership and oversight of admissions, financial aid bursar and registrar as well as information technology. She serves as the strategy lead on the university’s OneSis (Banner) implementation and plays an integral role with the university’s strategic plan and retention initiatives.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Jenny Paulsen

Deputy CIO, University of South

University Technology Leader of the Year

Jenny Paulsen is a deputy chief information officer at the University of South Florida. Paulsen recognizes that being a savvy analytic consumer requires data literacy. She partnered with ASR Analytics to develop a data literacy program that inspires and enables self-service analytics and expands data expertise at USF. The team created a comprehensive program for beginner through advanced capacities, deploying courses in an online interactive platform. Users receive immediate feedback on their progress and badges for mastery, and work with real data examples to reinforce learning. Improved data literacy at USF reduces reliance on IT for reporting and promotes effective decision making in support of student and institutional success.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Bridget Yuhas

Director of Student Affairs Assessment and Strategy, Butler University

University Technology Leader of the Year

Bridget Yuhas is the director of student affairs assessment and strategy at Butler University. Yuhas is impacting student well-being at 20 universities across the country as the creator of SWISS (Student Well-Being Institutional Support Survey). SWISS is a research-backed assessment powered by Qualtrics technology that gives school leaders actionable information about how their students are feeling in order to improve support for physical, financial and mental health. This research has led Butler University and others to uncover gaps in services across campus, from residence life programming to nutrition counseling, and take quick, targeted action for maximum student impact.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Course Schedule Optimization

Augusta Technical College

University Technology Innovation of the Year

Augusta Technical College is using SAS Analytics to provide a course schedule optimization which will provide outcome measurements and propose course times and days of the week for student success overall and for each delivery method and subject area. The analysis determines which instructors need additional training/resources based on desired student outcomes. The schedule optimization solution will include cost analysis and a schedule optimization component to provide a course schedule optimized around student outcomes (grades) that considers various constraints such as class size, location, instructor availability, and the technology needed in the classroom.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Video Wall

Fayetteville State University

University Technology Innovation of the Year

A 36-foot long, nearly seven-foot tall video wall in the student center at North Carolina’s Fayetteville State University is highlighting students who’ve landed paid internships and jobs — and the employers that hired them. The $300,000 wall, unveiled in March, is part of a years-long initiative to connect more students with career opportunities. The wall, which stands outside the university’s career services office, is made up of more than 100 LCD displays.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Experience Implementation

McNeese State University

University Technology Innovation of the Year

McNeese State University needed an urgent replacement for its outdated campus dashboard, which had not only required four full-time employees to manage its growing complexity, but also crashed completely amid back-to-back hurricanes. After implementing Ellucian Experience, MSU gained access to an intuitive campus dashboard that simplifies information delivery and can adapt to the needs of students, staff, and administrators alike, all while secured by cloud-based disaster recovery. After a 6-month implementation process that finished ahead of schedule and under budget, the new system led to a 75 percent decrease in hours required to manage the platform.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

6E Rollout Project

University of Michigan

University Technology Innovation of the Year

The University of Michigan is the first U.S. university to run a 6E wireless network, finishing up upgrades on its Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses at the end of June. Wi-Fi 6E hardware runs on standard radio bands, like 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, but taps into a 6GHz band to open up additional channels and accommodate more devices and activity.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Virtual Reality Pilot

Morehouse College

University Technology Innovation of the Year

Morehouse College, a historically Black institution in Atlanta, started tinkering with virtual reality in the spring 2021 semester, offering a new way to visualize molecules in an advanced inorganic chemistry class. Muhsinah Morris, an assistant professor of chemistry who led the effort, said VR has impressed her, crediting the technology with boosting students’ grades by 10 percent and heightening student satisfaction and engagement with course material.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Vaccine Cold Chain Integrity

North Carolina Collaboratory

University Technology Innovation of the Year

Vaccine waste and storage was a challenging part of the supply chain during the pandemic. The NC Collaboratory, based at the University of North Carolina, is integrating data from vaccine storage freezers at NC universities, including HBCUs and rural institutions that help get vaccines to sparsely populated areas. The Collaboratory cold chain integrity project used intelligent alerting to derive impact of effects such as temperature, humidity, vibration during transport, open/close, storage duration, and freezer capacity on vaccine viability.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Air Panther Student-Led Network Innovation

Prairie View A&M University

University Technology Innovation of the Year

The Center for Information Technology Excellence department at Prairie View A&M University embarked upon a Network Operations Center Summer Internship with four students in engineering and computer Science. Through classroom training, hands-on labs, and study sessions the students learned networking protocols and technologies to install, configure, deploy, and manage a modern networking experience for the PVAMU Northwest Center campus. Through their efforts the students improved network capacity and speed across the campus 1000%. The students led by campus staff was able to successfully contribute to the university and learn invaluable workforce skills.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Interactive Displays

Stevens Institute of Technology

University Technology Innovation of the Year

Stevens Institute of Technology prides itself on being at the forefront of technology, but in its virtual and blended classrooms, teachers struggled with dated videoconferencing and whiteboard setups. By introducing Samsung’s interactive displays, Stevens effectively bridges professors and students with their remote peers. Teachers appreciate the display’s annotation capabilities, content sharing, screen mirroring, recording features, and versatility. With enhanced in-person and virtual collaboration students are reporting higher engagement and leadership says “the display has made teaching hybrid classes completely effortless.”

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Hybrid Cloud Data Center

University of South Carolina

University Technology Innovation of the Year

A hybrid-cloud data center migration underway at the University of South Carolina is expected to yield greater flexibility and more predictable IT costs, the school’s chief information officer says. The 34,000-student campus in Columbia has wanted to get off its current data center since at least 2017.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Increasing Student Success with CX Technology

University of Texas at Arlington

University Technology Innovation of the Year

The University of Texas at Arlington’s IT department has created a plethora of creative applications for student-centered departments with innovative, forward-thinking results using Genesys Cloud. By using agentless campaigns, they obtain survey information from former students, and obtain shadow opportunities, future curriculum design, and key touchpoints to current and first-gen students. Using one contact list per campaign for more efficient contacts with automation using rules management has been transformative. Previously, they paid a 3rd-party service for outbound campaigns. Now, they have reduced costs, increased department productivity, and have more creative freedom since operating in-house.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Damien Eversmann

Chief Architect - Education, Red Hat

Industry Leader of the Year

Damien Eversmann leads Red Hat’s education team in constructing collaborative partnerships with institutions to drive workforce development before students leave the classroom. With Boston University, Damien’s team launched Red Hat OpenShift Data Science to enable 300+ computer science students access to a scalable environment, allowing professors a simplified way to educate students on the critical concepts of computer science. Alongside Damien’s team, Wake Technical Community College and Fayetteville Technical Community College created a four-month program preparing students to take the Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator exam. Since its inception, these programs are making technical skills attainable for nontraditional students.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Laura Ipsen

President & CEO, Ellucian

Industry Leader of the Year

Laura Ipsen leads Ellucian, the leading technology solutions provider focused on higher education, offering a portfolio of cloud-ready solutions and serving more than 26 million students at 2,900+ institutions in over 50 countries. Ipsen is critical in driving Ellucian’s mission of guiding institutions through digital transformation and accelerating IT modernization, enabling more institutions to leverage cloud computing to improve student outcomes, increase security, enhance operational efficiency, and enable business continuity. To date, more than 1,200 Ellucian customers have at least one or more Ellucian applications in the cloud, and 600+ institutions have their full ERP and SIS in the cloud.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Matt Mandrgoc

Head of U.S. Public Sector, Zoom

Industry Leader of the Year

As Head of U.S. Public Sector at Zoom, Matt Mandrgoc leads the teams who are enabling and accelerating the future of education with top universities, K-12 systems as well as top community and technical colleges. Mandrgoc’s leadership has allowed Zoom to provide frictionless communication and collaboration capabilities and continuity of operations during a time of unprecedented impact on the education sector.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Janet McIllece

Senior Adviser - Digital Strategy, World Wide Technology

Industry Leader of the Year

Janet McIllece is a passionate leader committed to elevating the mission of higher education within the public sector. McIllece amplifies the success of important initiatives by integrating her business, technical, and consultative expertise with innovative collaborative techniques. By guiding colleagues and client stakeholders to align in their visions and goals, McIllece brings transparency to complex programs and projects. Driven by her dedication to helping students thrive in the digital world, McIllece creates platforms for IT professionals to engage, develop and enable students on their career journeys, with mentorship for capstone projects, participation in seminars and panels, and organizing community coding events.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Jim Milton

Chairman & CEO, Anthology

Industry Leader of the Year

Jim Milton has helped Anthology grow into the largest global edtech ecosystem. With 3,600 employees, Milton serves as an education champion in helping more than 8,000 learning institutions evolve their business models to deliver an exceptional student experience and advance the future of learning through more than 60 SaaS capabilities. He brings more than 35 years of technology leadership experience to support Anthology’s mission of helping learners, leaders and educators achieve their goals. Milton believes that through collaboration, education can transform the lives of learners and institutions of all shapes and sizes in meaningful ways.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

John O’Brien

President & CEO, EDUCAUSE

Industry Leader of the Year

John O’Brien serves as the president and CEO of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through technology innovation. EDUCAUSE serves over 2,000 member colleges, universities, and organizations from 41 countries who themselves collectively serve over 14 million students. He speaks and writes on a variety of topics related to higher education, technology, and the crucial intersection where the two meet. Throughout his career in higher education, John has served as an academic, technology, and institutional leader. He was a faculty leader in instructional technology, a statewide IT project leader, and associate vice chancellor/deputy CIO at the system level.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Lee Perlis

Global Vice President of Higher Education Strategy and Solutions, Qualtrics

Industry Leader of the Year

As Global Vice President of Higher Education Strategy and Solutions at Qualtrics, Lee Perlis is a change agent in the higher education industry, guiding institutions in the adoption of experience management technology so they can provide better student, faculty and staff experiences. Perlis helps institutions listen to their students and employees, identifying experience gaps and the necessary actions to improve outcomes like graduation, sense of belonging, well-being and retention.

2022 EdScoop 50 Awards

Neal Tilley

Education Adviser - U.S. Public Sector, Cisco

Industry Leader of the Year

With more than 30 years’ experience in the IT industry, Neal Tilley supports Cisco’s education customers throughout their digital transformation. Tilley leads weekly Higher Education Advisory Council open meetings, bringing over 50 institutions together to share approaches to all challenges including the pandemic and hybrid learning. He coordinated a two-day virtual conference on the future of higher education as part of this program. Tilley is an advocate for eSports and STEM in schools, and in April he brought women in eSports together to share experiences under an International Girls in ICT event that helped over 10,000 enrollments in the program globally.