Speaker: Kara Bilotta

A common thread that ties together each of Kara’s positions in information technology is her uncompromising commitment to providing the best technology experience possible for faculty, students and staff at the institutions where she has worked.

Kara received her bachelor of arts in English with a concentration in Secondary Education from Regis College in 2003 and her master of science in Organizational and Professional Communication from Regis in 2006.

Kara joined Tufts University in July 2006 as an IT services coordinator, a function centered on the daily operations of University Information Technology’s (UIT) support center. That position evolved to become an IT client services specialist, a customer focused role that concentrated on problem solving and improving direct communication and interaction between UIT and the community. The next step in Kara’s career at Tufts involved a focus on client relationships. Kara’s team was responsible for increasing communication and collaboration between IT groups at Tufts in order to improve the quality of IT services within the Tufts community. This spring brings yet another new beginning for Kara; she will be leading the Service Measurement & Analysis team reporting directly to the Director of Client Support Services. This team has been tasked with researching, developing, and providing accurate and effective metrics aligned with service level expectations and performance objectives. Focused on reporting of performance results and measurements in comparison to established key performance indicators (KPIs) in order to identify trends and opportunities, to sustain and improve the effectiveness of Client Support Services 

Previous to her roles at Tufts, Kara held the position of Regis College ITS helpdesk coordinator, maintaining the institution's helpdesk services and training student employees as well as faculty and staff.

Kara is currently serving on the NERCOMP Board.
 

Speaker: Eric Dannenberg

I have been with Boston University since 1986. My current position is that of Change & Configuration Manager for Information Services & Technology (IS&T). I have been working in this role since August of 2010. I bring over 25 years of wide ranging data center operations, disaster recovery, business continuity, and contingency planning management experience to the position.
I was heavily involved in the development, documentation, and launching of the change management process for all of IS&T in early 2011. As change manager, I oversee the change related activities for the applications, network engineering, systems engineering, and server administration groups which provide and support services for the entire university
I am ITIL version 3.0 Foundations, Release, Control, & Validation, and Service, Offerings, & Agreements certified. As an active board member for the itSMF USA Higher Education Special Interest Group, I am able to exchange ideas and thoughts with other higher education service management professionals.
 

Speaker: Phillip Deneault

Phillip Deneault is the Information Security Officer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he has spent the last 20 months serving as co-chair of the IT Service Management committee leading a cross-functional group of IT profressionals in the quest to replace an outdated tracking tool.

Information Security is Phil’s primary responsibility at WPI and as such, he serves on the REN-ISAC Technical Advisory Board, is the current Chair of the Internet2 Computer Security Incidents Working Group, holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and maintains a CISSP certification.

Speaker: Marie DiRuzza

As the Associate Director for IT Service and Support, Marie DiRuzza oversees IT Content, Communications & Training, Helpdesk and Desktop Services at WPI. She has spent the last 20 months as co-chair of the IT Service Management committee leading a cross-functional group of IT professionals in the quest to replace an outdated tracking tool.

Marie, who received her Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, currently holds a certificate in Project Management from WPI, is HDI Help Desk Manager certified and serves as the President of the HDI New England Chapter.


Speaker: Geoffrey Greene

Geoffrey Greene is Director of IT Support Services at Brown University. Geoff has worked in IT at Brown since 1988, holding a variety of positions. In his current role, Geoff oversees the Help Desk, Software Services team, IT Support Consultants team, Communications and Training team, and the Production Services team. He led the Google project that moved all university faculty, staff, grad, and med students to Google. Geoff is a proponent of ITIL and continuous service improvement methodologies. He is helping to lead efforts to use ITIL to standardize process and tools in support of all IT services. Additionally, Geoff manages Brown's IT service catalog.


Speaker: Hillary Rosenfeld

Hillary Rosenfeld is the Service Management Architect at Boston University’s central IT organization, Information Services & Technology (IS&T). In her current position, Hillary fosters relationships between IS&T and its clients by developing processes and functions related to Service Level Agreements and Business Relationship Management and supports others in their development of service management processes. In previous positions Hillary has built services teams, implemented new support tools and processes and strengthened client relations. She has 15 years of technical, leadership and management experience in contexts ranging from educational institutions and technology companies. She has served on the board of the itSMF Higher Education Special Interest Group. Hillary is ITIL v3 Foundation certified and is currently working toward her ITIL Expert certification.


Speaker: Matthew Wollman

Matt has worked at Harvard University Information technology for 12 years in various IT support roles, current serving as an IT Service Management Analyst focused on Incident, Request and Problem Management. He began is ITSM journey in 2003, while working as a Service Desk supervisor and Remedy administrator. Since then he has been focused on improving Harvard IT services through unified processes, to create a consistent quality of service and value to the Harvard University community. He currently holds several ITIL certifications and is working on his ITIL Expert, and serves as the IT Service Management Forum Higher Education Special Interest Group President. Locally, in the Boston area, he organizes quarterly meetings with local universities to discuss ITSM concepts and share ideas.