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IBIT News

Advisory board meeting – November 2024

The IBIT advisory board meeting on November 6th, 2024, brought together industry partners, faculty, and students for a day of discussion, research, and celebration.

The meeting included opening remarks by newly appointed board chair, Sondra Barbour, and introduction of new members David McGettigan and Frank Fawzi.

Munir Mandviwalla led a discussion about IBIT’s new model for assessing interdisciplinary center impact, followed by a preview of IS Job Index 2024 by Laurel Miller. The meeting featured new research with board member Michael Bradshaw on Kyndryl‘s data liberation and practice modernization.

Manoj Chacko introduced the DIF showcase featuring MovisionHEP – physical therapy at home (Cole Hagen and Yuval Shimoni), Fanalli – fair-priced tickets for genuine fans (Rhea Mohite and Ayush Gupta), and GenAI reliability and transparency (Scholastic – Raghushri Sankaran and Konstantin Bauman).

The evening reception also included posters on AI Opportunity Index (Ziyi (Iggy) Zhao), Embodied Intelligence (David Liang, Lu Lu), and Virtual Pulmonary Rehabilitation (Cole Roberts, Seyedmohammad (Omid) Pourshahid).

The event concluded with a segment recognizing Bruce Fadem, outgoing founding board chair, for his contributions, including acknowledgments from Chip Hunter, Andrea Anania Stewart, Jeff Hamilton, and Munir Mandviwalla.

Directly manage and adjust patient rehab.

DIF is partnering with Omid Pourshahid, Assistant Professor, Lewis Katz School of Medicine, to develop a platform that allows providers to assess and manage patient rehab, and patients’ ability to provide data that is used to regularly adjust their rehab plan.

The role of AI avatars in hospitality

Lu Lu, Associate Professor, School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management and Wangoo Lee, Graduate Fellow are partnering with DIF to explore the role of AI avatars in hospitality. The Embodied Intelligence project will involve comparison and effects of AI avatars on the efficacy of hospitality interactions.

Sondra Barbour appointed IBIT Advisory Board Chair

Sondra L. Barbour, Retired Executive Vice President, Information Systems & Global Solutions, Lockheed Martin Corporation

In her newly appointed role as Advisory Board Chair, Sondra L. Barbour aims to continue strengthening IBIT’s student development, research, and industry partnerships.  

Since starting as a founding board member in 2005, I have focused on raising awareness about the quality of the education students receive and the career paths they can pursue. In recent years, we have also prioritized mentoring students and connecting them to industry executives, as well as researching emerging technologies.

She is proud of the launch of the Digital Innovation Foundry, where “industry and the school come together to work on solving really tough real-world problems.” Barbour also helped to start IBIT’s Executive-in-Residence program, which connects students, faculty, and senior industry leaders.

Throughout her career at Lockheed Martin, Barbour gained extensive technology leadership experience, from information systems design and cybersecurity to supply chain oversight and risk management. Fortune magazine selected her twice as one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business.” She is a Temple University Fox alumna, with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Accounting.

Barbour brings notable experience to the chair position, with past and current board service at NiSource, AGCO, Perspecta Inc., and 3M Company. She intends to build on the legacy of former founding chair Bruce Fadem.

I’m very excited that Bruce is remaining as a board member. He did a great job establishing a formal structure for the board, and we’ll continue operating like a corporate board to make the best recommendations.

Noting that leadership change is always a good moment for reflection, she plans to engage board members for their insights on IBIT’s future.

I want to ensure everyone has a voice and they’re heard. The members of this board are tremendous, with a huge amount of experience and diverse industry perspectives. We all have something significant to contribute.

Learn more about Sondra Barbour

David McGettigan, SVP at Pfizer

Early in David McGettigan’s career, he saw firsthand how digital innovation can transform daily life. In the 1990s, he led the creation of Mobil Oil’s Speedpass electronic payment device, which enabled millions of gas station customers to pay at the pump without cash or presenting a credit card. The popular radio-frequency identification (RFID) device was deployed 16 years before anyone ever heard of Apple Pay.

Beginning my career at ExxonMobil taught me how to work at large scale while innovating through leveraging technology

After leading many e-business achievements in the energy sector, such as the direct distribution of motor oil online to racing enthusiasts, he decided to change industries.

I wanted to do something that was more for the greater good and in a field that was intrinsically rewarding.

He made the move to pharmaceuticals 24 years ago. Currently, as Senior Vice President at Pfizer, he oversees enterprise resource programs, cloud and network services, and technology integration for acquisitions.

The ability to leverage technology and bring innovative medicines to patients is the primary driver for me and my team. It’s also very gratifying because we get to create these new capabilities and then observe the outcomes and advantages.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he served as Pfizer’s head of digital manufacturing. McGettigan’s team created the patent-pending Digital Operations Center, which provides end-to-end visibility across the entire manufacturing network, resolving issues in real time while accelerating and scaling production. This capability became crucial during the pandemic and was leveraged to deliver hundreds of millions of vaccine doses globally.

McGettigan has taught at Temple University for more than two decades, both online as well as in person. In his Management Information Systems 5001 course, he offers MBA students a foundational overview of how technology impacts people in all business roles and shares how leaders can utilize technology for competitive advantage.

In serving on the IBIT Advisory Board, he sees an opportunity to engage with many more students.

IBIT ensures that students have the skills to meet the demands they’re going to face when they graduate,” he says. “I want to apply what I have learned in my career and play a role in providing help to students through scholarships, career counseling, and recruiting.