Michael Cato
Michael leads Bowdoin College's Information Technology strategy and operations through the Information and Technology department and has spent over 17 years in Higher Education IT. He is active in a number of professional organizations such as EDUCAUSE and NERCOMP, with an emphasis on leadership development and the array of issues around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Michael holds a B.S. in Zoology from Andrews University and an M.B.A. from Wake Forest University. He loves to learn, read, eat, occasionally cook, and starts most days being humbled by CrossFit. Michael is raising an awesome toddler son with his partner and wife Heather.

Ananda Jones
Ananda Jones is the Assistant Director of Partnerships, Marking and Project Management for NERCOMP.  She is currently the Chair of the Vendor & Licensing committee for NERCOMP and has been working for the organization for almost 8 years.  Ananda previously worked in higher education admissions, and her early career was in pharmaceuticals and jet engine sales and services.  Ananda holds a Master's Degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Connecticut.

Fred Kass
Fred Kass is Director of Networking and Infrastructure Services at Trinity College. He is responsible for budgeting, planning and operations of most back-end components of Information Services including campus networks, wireless, servers, storage arrays, firewalls, machine rooms, network closets, security cameras, underground low voltage cables, client computers, telephones, cable television, and access control devices.

Throughout his twenty-year higher education information technology career, he has been a strong proponent of inter-institutional collaboration. Besides his work with NERCOMP, Fred currently serves on the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology Infrastructure Advisory Council. He is also active with the Connecticut Higher Education Roundtable on Information Security (CHERIS), CTW (Connecticut College, Trinity College, Wesleyan University) Consortium and the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges. Fred previously worked closely with the Five Colleges Consortium while working for Mount Holyoke College.

Fred has hosted training for the Internet2 Shibboleth group and is currently Principle Investigator for the National Science Foundation grant CC*DNI Campus Design: Trinity College Next Generation Science Network and DMZ.

Fred has an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Isenberg School of Management and is an alum of the NERCOMP Managers series and the EDUCAUSE Leadership Institute.

Cindy Mitchell
Cindy Mitchell is Chief Information Officer at Colby College, a leading liberal arts college located in Waterville, Maine. She has been at Colby nearly four years.  Prior to Colby she served at the University of Maine System for thirty years in many roles culminating in the role of Associate CIO with responsibility for a number of system-wide IT services as well as direct responsibility for IT leadership for the University of Maine in Orono, the University of Maine at Fort Kent, and the University of Maine at Machias.  She is a change agent and transformational leader having led organization changes, IT strategic plan implementations, and major technology projects resulting in process changes across the organization. Most recently she led a Workday HCM and Financials implementation as part of Colby’s IT strategic initiatives.  She has been an Educause Learning Technology Leadership Institute faculty member, NERCOMP board member, SIG-UCCS mentor, served on Educause Advisory groups including Core Data Service and Enterprise Advisory Group and is an Educause Leading Change/Frye Fellow. She holds a BA in English and Computer Science and an MA in English from the University of Maine.

Tina Pappas
Tina Pappas is a leader in the Higher Education space with masters degrees in organizational communication and business administration. Tina's career includes experience in helpdesk, IT operations management, process optimization, and strategic planning.

She is particularly invested in increasing collegiality, communications, and collective engagement among and between personnel throughout the decentralized and often siloed university systems.  Tina works to build community and create a dynamic organizational culture in which staff can connect professionally and interpersonally. She acts as the interface between individuals and the systems within which they work and fosters the development of both. Some of professional initiatives at Rutgers University include creating an onboarding program for IT professionals, growing a virtual community for the IT workforce, developing processes and frameworks for IT Governance, and assisting in the enhancement of IT communications.

Amy Schack
Amy Schack currently serves as the Program Coordinator for the Northeast Regional Computer Program (NERCOMP).  In this role, she works directly with professional development organizers to plan and execute workshops and webinars.  She also handles data analysis/presentations in order to assist committees and the Board of Trustees in furthering the mission, vision and strategic plan of NERCOMP.  She also serves on the Professional Development Committee, Data Task Force, Leadership Ecosystem Committee, and Community Relations Committee.  

Prior to joining NERCOMP, Amy worked as the Director of Residential Life at several colleges and universities in New York.  In these roles, she worked with the Division of Student Affairs to create strategic plans, assess departmental quality and plan new programs, services and initiatives. 

Amy holds a Master of Science in Education with a concentration in Counseling from Fordham University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Secondary Education certification from Eastern Connecticut State University. 

Candace Sleeman
Dr. Sleeman is nearing her second year at Southern New Hampshire University where she is currently STEM Technical Program Facilitator for Global Campus Academics. Prior to this role she directed a team of academic analysts. As an Adjunct Professor of Data Analytics, she is a Subject Matter Expert in Data Analytics and Data Science. She is helping to launch a new online graduate program in Data Science and reshape the undergraduate Data Analytics program. She is proud of Southern New Hampshire University’s mission of providing affordable and accessible higher education to all, especially in the area of STEM by encouraging professionals to expand their capabilities.

She began her career as a programmer/analyst for a Naval war gaming system after completing her B.S. in Mathematics at the University of Vermont and her M.S. in Computer Science at Monmouth University. While designing and coding simulations for acoustic data as a computer engineer for the Navy, she completed her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at Drexel University. During her industry career she has worked in commercial, government and academic settings on projects involving satellite telecommunications, cable system capacity planning, mobile systems design for emerging international markets, secure communications, mobile data analytics, adaptive learning and generating insights for financial services. She has numerous publications and is the co-author of two books on research methods. She has presented her work at international conferences.

Candace is passionate about innovation and technology. As an industry Data Science leader, she specialized in big data architecture, data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence. She is bringing this expertise to higher education to train the next generation of experts as they compete in the global marketplace. She is active in the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science, ACM SIGKDD, Open Data Science Community, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and MassChallenge. As a new member of the Board, she looks forward to collaborating on opportunities for learning and innovation.

Stan Waddell
Stan Waddell serves as the associate vice president and chief information officer at Carnegie Mellon University. In his role, Stan provides vision, leadership, and management for Carnegie Mellon’s computing enterprise, including the development and implementation of a university-wide IT strategy.

Before joining Carnegie Mellon, Stan served as the associate vice president for Information Technology and CIO at the University of New Hampshire. He was the assistant vice chancellor and chief technology officer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and spent nine years at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Stan also served in the U.S. Navy as an aviation electronics technician for nine years.

Stan holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Old Dominion University, a master's degree in management and administration sciences from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a doctorate in information systems from Nova Southeastern University. He has a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) credentials, and a graduate certificate in information assurance from Nova Southeastern University.

Karen Warren
Karen is in her ninth year at Wesleyan University where she assumed the role of Deputy CIO in Nov 2016. Karen has oversight for the user services, technical services, and academic technology teams. Combined, they provide the foundational support for all other IT operations in the University, develops strategic input regarding systems and infrastructure, and provide support for teaching and learning through the use of technology.

Karen is currently chair of NERCOMP's Board (2016-2017) and served as NERCOMP Annual Conference chair in 2016. She has presented on numerous topics at the NERCOMP Annual Conference and other professional workshops. Karen is active in campus life and committed to crossing functional and departmental lines to bring solutions to the Wesleyan community. She served on the University's re-accreditation team in 2012. Karen also participates in events from the National Center for Women in Technology and the local Society for Information Management.

Selected projects include core network refresh, enterprise WLAN upgrade, ServiceNow implementation, and migration to Office 365.

Prior to coming to Wesleyan, Karen spent 15 years at the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, CT where she was IT Director for 10 of those years. Karen focused much time on the importance of broadband access in K-12 education, forging a strong and lasting relationship with Connecticut Education Network. Having spoken at numerous conferences on the topic, Karen was invited to participate on a panel at the FCC on the importance of ERate to broadband in schools.