Ruth Adams is the Dean of Curriculum and Instruction for Virtual High School (VHS, Inc.), a nonprofit collaborative offering online courses to over 200 high schools in 27 states and 24 international school sites. A professional educator with 30 years experience teaching on the secondary, university and graduate school levels, Ruth has been involved with VHS since its inception in 1996. She has developed and taught web-based high school courses as well as graduate courses on online pedagogy, course design and effective virtual teaching strategies.

An Apple Distinguished Educator and one of 21st Century Magazine’s Top Twenty Outstanding Educators, Ruth has written several articles and book chapters on online teaching and learning. She has also presented at educational conferences for the American International Schools Association, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the National School Boards Association (NSBA), and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).
 

Melissa Anderson has worked with Blackboard and other educational technologies for the past seven years as a director of education technology at both NYU and Pepperdine. In these roles, she was responsible for both the technical management of the system as well as the training and support of faculty, staff and students. Melissa has her MA in Educational Policy and MBA in Management, both from Columbia University. She is currently finishing her doctorate in educational technology at Pepperdine University, with dissertation work focused on collaborative learning. Melissa is a Senior Pedagogical Advisor for Blackboard and works with institutions throughout the world in utilizing the Blackboard platform to support academic goals.
 

Frank Daniels joined Vital Source, a software and services company providing solutions to education institutions and textbook publishers, as President and CEO in January, 2001.  Frank joined Vital Source after the sale of Total Sports, inc., an internet sports services company with clients like the NCAA, Major League Baseball and 100 colleges and universities. Frank began his career in newspapers working as a reporter and editor at The St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press and The Ledger-Star in Norfolk, VA. He then joined The News and Observer Publishing Company, Raleigh, NC, and worked in a number of jobs on both the business and news sides of the company eventually becoming executive editor in 1990. He left the N&O after its sale to McClatchy Newspapers to run the Nando.net new media division (which he started at the N&O.) Frank has taught at Duke University and Peace College. He has served on numerous civic, industry and corporate boards and was the first president of the New Media Federation of the NAA.  He is a graduate of Duke University. 
 

Joel Domino is the President of Kent Displays Inc. of Kent Ohio.  Prior to becoming President in 2003, Joel was Chief Financial Officer of Kent joining the company shortly after it’s start-up in 1993.  From 1982 – 1993 Joel worked for Ball Corporation.  He held various financial positions at Ball including Chief Financial Officer of a $100 million Joint Venture Subsidiary, and his last position there was Director of Strategic Planning.  Joel has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Union College, and an MBA from California State University Fresno.

Ms. Hawkwood joined Thomson Gale in 1999 as a Product Manager for the InfoTrac suite of periodical databases. Prior to joining Gale, Ms. Hawkwood was employed as Director of Editorial Operations for MD Consult and as Managing Editor at UMI. She holds a B. A. degree from Vanderbilt University.
 

Isabella Hinds is currently Sr. Director, Business Development. At WebCT, Ms. Hinds develops partnerships with a range of content creators and software companies, based on the emerging needs of customers and three way collaboration with best of breed learning companies to ensure quality experiences for customers. Ms. Hinds instituted the Content Showcase, the only fully automated online system for order capture and order fulfillment for content products in a course management system.

Immediately prior to joining WebCT, Ms. Hinds consulted licensing strategies for academic institutions, including a survey of licensing practices in digital distance education for the US Copyright Office.

From 1987-98, Ms. Hinds served as Vice President, Rightsholder Relations and Academic Services at the Copyright Clearance Center. While at CCC, Ms. Hinds developed the Academic Permissions Service, a collective licensing service for course packs, and established a licensing service for e-reserves. Under her leadership, the APS was the first ever web based system for rights clearance with full transaction processing capabilities.

Ms. Hinds holds a BA, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and a MA from Brandeis University. She is a former Board Member of the Society for Scholarly Publishers and is currently a member of SSP’s Education Committee.
 

Mr. Hitchcock is also Director of a U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education (OSEP) cooperative agreement project, the new “NIMAS Technical Assistance Center” and directs CAST’s work on the American Institutes for Research Technical Assistance project, the “Center for Implementing Technology in Education” (CITEd).

Mr. Hitchcock has extensive practical experience in special education administration, technology education, and teaching at all levels from early childhood to graduate school. He co-directed a private learning disabilities clinic, served as the founding director of a Massachusetts statewide technology training and support center that served 180 school districts, and was an account executive for hardware and educational software companies.
 

George Kerscher is dedicated to developing technology to make information not only accessible, but fully functional in the hands of persons who are blind and disabled. He himself is blind, and started to develop computer-based information technology in 1987. He has proven to be a tireless advocate of structured markup, such as XML, in information systems that simultaneously serve both the mainstream population and persons with disabilities.

George Kerscher coined the term "print disabled" to describe people who cannot effectively read print because of a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability. He believes and advocates that in the Information Age, access to information is a fundamental human right. He also believes that properly designed information systems can make all information accessible to all people, and is working to push the evolving technologies in that direction.

Currently, George Kerscher is Senior Officer of Accessible Information at Recording For the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D in the USA, Secretary General for the DAISY Consortium, Chairperson of the Board of Directors for the Open eBook Forum (OeBF), and Co-chair of the Steering Council of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
 

Marcia Kuszmaul has been aligned with Microsoft’s education initiatives for the past 10 years and is currently group product manager for the Microsoft Education Products Group.  In that role, Marcia works to ensure Microsoft’s platform products meet the needs and exceed the expectations of education customers and partners.  Love of learning and the mission of the education community have inspired Marcia to work in education most of her career, starting as a classroom teacher then entering education marketing through textbook publishing and as director of marketing for the American Library Association.

From 1993 to1996 he served as vice president of the Higher Education Division of the Association of American Publishers, before founding Lightspeed, a consulting firm specializing in business development, marketing and e-business strategy. As part of his activities on behalf of the Book Industry Study Group (Board of Directors) and the Open eBook Forum, he is involved with emerging technologies and standards development.

A graduate of Harvard College in English Literature, he earned a Masters Degree in Socio-economics from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. He is a regular presenter at industry meetings including BEA, and the Frankfurt Book Fair. His articles on marketing, technology, culture, and educational policy have also appeared in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The EDUCOM Review, Change, Market Trends, and the Journal of Contemporary Business.
 

Tim Magner is Deputy Director, Office of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education. 

His work experience includes serving as Executive Director K12 Education for Microsoft, directing the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), and working for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). He was the Director of Technology for Framingham Public Schools, and taught graduate courses at Framingham State College and George Mason University.

Mr. Magner began his career as a high school social studies teacher and taught middle and high school in France and Switzerland. 

He has a B.A. from William & Mary and an M.ED from Harvard University.
 

Prior to joining AAP's staff, Ed served as Director of Legal Services at the Authors Guild, providing licensing and copyright advice to published writers and advocating for authors' rights. Ed is also the author of the book To Live and Dream: The Incredible Story of George Foreman, available from New Street Publishing.
 

Kevin McKiernan, Director of Business Development for MBS Direct, LLC, manages several e-commerce projects for the company, including the web site STUDYtactics.com, and initiatives to convert and deliver course content material, in e-book format, to distance learning students served by MBS Direct. 

Kevin joined MBS Direct in 2002 after serving in various positions for its parent company, MBS Textbook Exchange, Inc. since 1987.  Prior to MBS, Kevin was Co-owner and General Manager of Student Book Store, Inc., in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and served as Vice President of Wallace’s Book Stores, Inc.  He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Louisville, and an MBA from Morehead State University.
 

Bob Steigerwald is product manager for Thomson Learning Labs. He is responsible for product infrastructure strategy, new product development and commercialization.

Bob’s background includes extensive experience in B2B and B2C e-commerce, online product development, customer relationship management systems and e-Business strategy.

Prior to Thomson, Bob managed e-commerce and product systems development for ConsumerReports.org. He has served as senior technology consultant in the areas of e-commerce, CRM and sales and marketing information systems to companies such as Dresser Instruments, Union Carbide and American Cyanamid.

Bob holds an M.B.A. in Management Information Systems from Iona College and a bachelor of science in Chemistry from Manhattan College.
 

Craig Swenson has served as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at University of Phoenix since 2000.  He began his academic career as an adjunct instructor at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University while serving as a Vice President and Marketing Director for a large banking system.

Dr. Swenson joined the University of Phoenix as a practitioner-faculty member in 1985.  He was honored with the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989 for the Utah Campus and was named Vice President and Director that campus later that year.  He subsequently served as Senior Vice President of the University’s Northwest Region and was responsible for creating new campuses in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

Dr. Swenson holds bachelor and master’s degrees in organizational communication and earned a Ph.D. in education with an emphasis in adult and organizational learning.  He was the 2002 Distinguished Alumnus of Walden University. He is widely published and is a frequent speaker in the areas of higher education, organizational development, online education, learning innovation, and faculty administration. 

Additionally, Dr. Swenson has provided consulting services for such organizations as American Express, AARP, and GE Capital Assurance.

University of Phoenix is the nation’s largest private university with an enrollment of more than 240,000 students.  It has more than physical 140 locations in 37 states, Puerto Rico, Canada and the Netherlands, in addition to its Online Campus headquartered in Phoenix.
 

In his current role, Mike manages the world’s largest ebookstore—eReader.com-- which sells direct to customers and also markets and sells eBooks and software into the elementary and secondary education markets. Mike has 25 years experience in the publishing industry holding executive positions in publishing, sales, rights, and International business development with leading educational, trade and reference publishers including Prentice Hall, Macmillan USA, Pearson Education, Simon & Schuster, and Hungry Minds,. He pioneered book and software publishing, and has worked with hardware companies to bring digital content to students using both desktop and handheld computers.

He has extensive experience in custom electronic textbooks, elearning product development, and copyright protection. He holds a Master of Science degree in Instructional Technology. Mike is also a published author.
 

Prior to joining Elsevier, Sebastian was a Managing Director at Handshake Dynamics, a boutique management consulting firm specializing in Media strategy.  Prior to that, he was a Principal Consultant in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Information, Communications, and Entertainment Corporate Strategy Practice.  He was also an Internal Consultant for The Timberland Company, and before that an Internal Auditor for Group Bull. Sebastian received his M.B.A. with Honors from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, and a B.S.B.A. from Boston University in Finance and Marketing.
 

John manages the product development and marketing awareness of Dolphin’s latest audio publishing technology.  Together with his team, he is responsible for forming strategic alliances and technical strategies to create mainstream authoring and playback tools that enable both the Publishing and Educational sectors to produce rich media content that is accessible to all. (which includes synchronised audio, text and images)

John has been involved with new and emerging technologies for over 20 years.  Starting his career with an electronics apprenticeship within the Ministry of Defence and working through various Government research and development projects.  John was part of the design team that redesigned and commissioned the UK Military Satellite Communications System for UK forces; he has also worked on several commissions for the European Space Agency on state of the art projects. 

Dolphin’s latest technology is no exception, John believes that mainstream content created in a totally accessible form, will revolutionise all Publishing industries.
 

Khaki Wunderlich has worked in disability services for students in higher education for 15 years at Tompkins Cortland Community College, Dryden, NY (SUNY). She is past president of the SUNY Disability Services Council and currently Chairperson of their Alternate Format Committee, is Co-Chairperson of the Open eBook Higher Education E-text Solutions Working Group, and is a member of the Association on Higher Education and Disability E-Text Solutions Task Force, New York State Chapter 219 Advisory Committee, and the Open eBook Accessibility SIG. She has played a lead role in training and development of local and national e-text solutions and resource materials to meet student, DSS provider, and publisher needs. Khaki holds a B.A from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a J.D. from the Cornell University Law School.