John McEleney
John McEleney is a seasoned entrepreneur and industry leader with over 30 years of experience in mechanical design, software, and product innovation. He is the former CEO of Solidworks and the Co-Founder of OnShape, the first cloud native SaaS product development platform, which revolutionized real time engineering collaboration.
He is also on the board of directors for Stratasys, a leader in polymer 3D printing, additive printing, and manufacturing. Mr. McEleney holds engineering degrees from the University of Rochester and Boston University, as well as an MBA from Northeastern University.
Silvina Grad
Silvina Grad is the Head of Technical Marketing at MathWorks, a global leader in mathematical computing software. She leads strategy and product efforts in high-performance computing, data scaling, software testing, IoT workflows, and integrating MATLAB and Simulink into modern development and automation processes. She has held engineering leadership roles at Scitex Corporation (later acquired by Kodak), where she directed teams developing advanced software for digital imaging systems. Silvina holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the National University of La Plata in Argentina and an M.S in Management from MIT.
Father Casey Beaumier S.J.
Father Casey Beaumier S.J., is the Vice President for University Mission and Ministry at Boston College. Over the course of his 19 year tenure at Boston College, he has served as a resident minister, director of IAJS, a Capstone Programs teacher, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Church in the 21st Century Center. Fr. Casey is passionate about advancing BC’s mission, supporting formative education, and celebrating the university’s culture and heritage. Fr. Casey holds a PhD in History from Boston College, along with degrees in Divinity, American Studies, Philosophy, and Journalism from other institutions.
Josh Wachman
Josh Wachman is the Managing Director of Nor’easter Ventures, a deep tech investing firm backing “ventures of consequence” at the Seed to Series A stage. A serial entrepreneur for over 2 decades, Wachman co-founded, and led three venture-backed companies: WatchPoint Media, Vitality, and Ditto Labs. He now advises scientific founders from lab to market, including via InQTel’s Emerge program for DARPA performers and The Noble Reach Foundation for NSF principal investigators. He studied machine learning and computer vision at the MIT Media Lab and began his career at Walt Disney Imagineering and DreamWorks.