Foundation Staff

Lois Brooks, Interim Executive Director

Lois Brooks is the Director of Academic Computing at Stanford University, which provides technology-based services to students, faculty and staff. Brooks has worked at Stanford for many years, focusing on the effective use of technology in learning, teaching and work processes. She started the Academic Technology Specialist program in 1995 with a directive and seed funding from the Stanford President's Commission on Technology in Teaching and Learning, and has shepherded its growth and development ever since.

Brooks directed the development of CourseWork, Stanford's course management system that has grown to support over 2000 classes annually, and has recently embarked on the Sakai project, a collaborate endeavor with three other universities to develop the next generation of course management and collaboration tools for higher education. She also directs Stanford's Residential Computing program, Media Solutions, Stanford's media development group, the technology support program for the Stanford University Libraries, as well as the technology enhanced classrooms, computer labs, consulting and teaching programs that comprise Academic Computing. She holds  two MBAs, one from Columbia University and one from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BS (Economics) from the University of San Francisco.

Mary Miles, Administrative Coordinator

Mary provides support to the Sakai community and the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors and is the meeting planner for the Sakai Conferences. Mary has been with the University of Michigan for 9 years. She also serves as the Secretary to the Sakai Board. Prior to joining the Sakai Foundation, she worked for the Millennium Project, Michigan Virtual Automotive College, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences and St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. She holds a B.S. from Eastern Michigan University and has a strong background in meeting planning and other administrative responsibilities.

Alan Berg, Interim QA Director

Alan Berg Bsc. MSc. PGCE, has been a lead developer at the Central Computer Services at the Universiteit van Amsterdam for more than a millennium. In his famously scarce spare time, he writes computer articles (http://home.uva.nl/a.m.berg). Alan has a degree, two masters, and a teaching qualification. In previous incarnations, he was a technical writer, an Internet/Linux course writer ok a product line development officer, and a teacher. He likes to get his hands dirty with the building and gluing of systems. He remains agile by playing computer games with his kids who sadly consistently beat him physically, mentally and morally. Did I mention the physical beatings; those eight and twelve year olds are so tough.

As Interim QA director, Alan intends to help stimulate changes to QA practices and infrastructure via automation and supporting the building of consensus over best practices. He considers good coverage of the code base with unit tests and continuous builds as a prerequisite to a stable evolving Sakai.

Alan welcomes the opportunity to learn from others, so if you have an opinion feel free to contact him or debate on the distribution lists.

Clay Fenlason, Product Manager

Clay Fenlason first became captivated by the role of technology in both communities and education while working as a volunteer in educational development in rural South Africa. There amidst schools without libraries and communities historically walled off from the world he discovered the power of the Web for leapfrogging a generation of infrastructure and lack of informational resources.

Upon returning to the States in 1999 he moved to Boston to enter a master's program in philosophy at Boston University, and he parlayed his experience doing computer modeling in gamma ray astronomy (he holds an M.S. in Astrophysics from I.S.U.) to acquire a job in the IT department - initially just for the tuition remission while he pursued his own studies. But a professional philosophical interest was once again eclipsed by a fascination with the computer as both a social tool and a medium for learning and collaboration. Late in 2003 he became the Associate Director for Academic Computing for Boston University's School of Management, and then spearheaded BU's entry into the Sakai partnership in early 2004. Since then he has been a vocal and active member of the community at a number of levels, and was named one of the inaugural Sakai fellows in May of 2006. In late 2006 Clay joined Georgia Tech as Director of Educational Technology. Throughout, his keenest interest has been in the nature and health of the organization and the community source model for higher education.

email: clayf@sakaifoundation.org

Pieter Hartsook, Communications Manager

Pieter is responsible for the Sakai Foundations internal and external communications. He uses his expertise to promote Sakai, build community, and to facilitate intra-community communications. Pieter spent six years as the marketing person at the Open Source Applications Foundation, Chandler project, was VP of Marketing Analysis and Research for Apple Computer, and Assistant Director of Libraries at Howard University. His market research newsletter The Hartsook Letter was judged by CMP publications as one of the PC industry's top 5 most influential newsletters. He plays racquetball and ukulele - but not at the same time.

email: hartsook@sakaifoundation.org
mobile: +1 510-393-9370
phone: +1 510-531-1334
skype: hartsook

Lance Speelmon, Indiana University, Scholarly Technologist

Lance Speelmon is a seventeen-year veteran of Indiana University’s Information Technology Services (UITS). Lance has been responsible for many of Indiana University’s high availability services including authentication, remote access, name resolution, network file systems, enterprise applications, messaging and collaboration. He now leads Indiana University’s development efforts in the Sakai collaboration, a landmark venture to create open-source course management tools and related software for the higher education community. Flatism, thin-slicing and post modern management pique Lance’s professional interests.

Anthony Whyte, Community/Technical Liaison

Anthony is a Senior Applications Programmer/Analyst based at the University of Michigan and the technical liaison for the Sakai Foundation. Anthony is currently involved in release management, tool development, site administration (sakaiproject.org, ux.sakaiproject.org), community relations and advocacy. Prior to joining the Sakai, Anthony served as a developer, lead developer and ultimately Director of Systems for Strategic Interactive and Novations Learning Technologies, where he helped design, build and implement commercial learning management systems for Fortune 100 companies. A Fulbright scholar, Anthony was educated at Michigan State University and Princeton University. He is an avid cyclist and woodworker.

email: arwhyte@sakaifoundation.org