Theme: Reach

Reaching within to achieve our own potential, reaching up to raise the bar on innovation, reaching out, connecting ideas around the city of Pittsburgh.

William Pitt Union
3959 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213
United States

Jessica Benham

Director of Public Policy at the Pittsburgh Center for Autistic Advocacy

Jessica is a strong advocate for Autistic rights and currently serves as the Director of Public Policy at the Pittsburgh Center for Autistic Advocacy. Among other projects, Jess has organized a statewide coalition against organ transplant discrimination, pushed successfully for more and better Medicaid waiver services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and trained first responders in autism competence. Jessica Benham is also a doctoral student in Communications, where she serves as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, and master’s student in Bioethics at the University of Pittsburgh. She holds a master’s in Communication Studies from Minnesota State University and Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Communication from Bethel University. In addition to her academic appointments and activism, Jessica’s research interest lies mainly in the investigation of the rhetorical and ethical constructions of disability in society.

Natalie Glance

Vice President of Engineering at Duolingo

Natalie Glance is VP of Engineering at Duolingo, whose mission is free language learning for the world, with over 150 million users on Android, iOS and the web. At Duolingo, Natalie has been working on conversational bots for teaching languages, social features, and performance improvements. She currently has four languages in her life: English for everyday, French with her mom, Spanish for reading and movies, and German on Duolingo (38% fluent!). Prior to Duolingo, Natalie worked at two other start-ups (WhizBang! Labs and Intelliseek) as well as at Google and Xerox Research Centre Europe. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in the areas of text mining, fake review detection, recommender systems, and multi-agent systems. She holds 17 U.S. patents. She co-founded the International Conference on Weblogs & Social Media and has been on the program committee and/or a reviewer for a number of conferences, workshops and journals.

Omar Khawaja

VP and Chief Information Security Officer at Highmark Health

Omar Khawaja has spent 15+ years delivering, developing and managing security solutions for startups, service providers, consulting firms and enterprises. Omar is currently VP and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Highmark Health, an integrated health care delivery and financing system, employing more than 35,000 people and serving 40 million Americans in 50 states. Prior to Highmark, Omar was at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, where he had responsibility for their portfolio of security solutions with customers in 72 countries. Omar currently serves on the boards of Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) and Action Housing, on the Governing Body of Evanta, on the CISO Workgroup of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and as adjunct faculty for the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) program at Carnegie Mellon University. Omar has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.

Robert Cafaro

Cellist at Philadelphia Orchestra

Bob was born in New York City, began cello studies at age 9 in the public school system and gave his first recital one year later. He entered the Juilliard Preparatory Division as a scholarship student and later enrolled in the Juilliard School where he received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. After graduating Bob played chamber music full time and served on the faculty of the University of Virginia until 1983 when he became a regular with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He later joined the Baltimore Symphony and in 1985 became a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. As an avid soloist and chamber musician, he has performed recitals and appeared in major cities of the world. He has also been a member of The Rachmaninov Trio since 2003. In addition Bob is passionately involved in volunteer and outreach activities for the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. He regularly visits schools, retirement communities and nursing homes.

Sarah Wells

Canadian Olympic Team and Silver Medalist

Sarah Wells is a Canadian hurdler who specializes in the 400 metres hurdles. She competed in the 2012 London Olympic Games and made it to the top 24 in the world. Wells had remarkably qualified for the Olympic Games after being sidelined for nine months in 2011 when she was diagnosed with a stress fracture in her left femur. After the Olympics, she went on to compete at the 2013 Summer Universiade where she won silver with the 4x400m relay. Wells was then out for another six months with a reoccurrence of the stress fracture in her femur, but came back to capture her fourth Canadian title in 2015. After suffering a third stress fracture, Wells was not able to compete at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. She prides herself on being able to work through her injuries time and time again while many people would normally have walked away after repeatedly being mentally defeated.

Walter Schneider

Professor at University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychology

Walter Schneider Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Bioengineering, Neurosurgery, & Radiology at the University of Pittsburgh & University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. His research includes basic and actionable neuroscience based on MRI diffusion imaging of brain connectivity. He advances the leading edge of brain imaging with Army/DARPA support to detect neural damage in Traumatic Brain Injury. He developed methods to map the brain’s anatomical connectivity, to provide the circuit diagram of the mind. The methods are deploying nationally to benefit war wounded. He has over 200 publications and 50,000 citations of his work. His technology has launched a Pittsburgh spin off company that has produced products adopted by over 10,000 laboratories and 250 imaging centers in 60 countries and adopted by the major MRI vendors and received FDA clearance. His work has been featured in 60 Minutes and Discovery magazine and highlighted by Michelle Obama as the most promising new technology.

William Valenta

Assistant Dean of MBA & Executive Programs for the University of Pittsburgh

Bill is currently the Assistant Dean for MBA & Executive Programs for the University of Pittsburgh – Katz Graduate School of Business wherein he is responsible for the entire portfolio of MBA, Executive MBA, International Executive MBA and Executive Education Programs. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, Bill was a 22 year member of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police wherein he held multiple positions eventually retiring with the rank of Commander. In addition to his professional background, Bill has worked with McKinsey and Company as a subject matter expert on police policy and strategic planning. He has also taught a variety of courses and workshops in the areas of police management, leadership, ethics and crisis management.