External Advisory Council

Scott Anderson (BS ComS ’91) is Director of Infrastructure and Operations at John Deere, Deere & Company World Headquarters, in Moline, IL. In prior roles at John Deere since he began in May of 1991, he served as Director of Digital Transformation, Director of Global Hosting and Networks Services and Program Director of Intelligent Solutions Groups.

Anderson earned his B.S. degree in Computer Science from Iowa State University in 1991. He was the first Lego League coach.

Karthik Balakrishnan is Chief Data & Analytics Officer for Principal Financial Group. He is a visionary senior executive with experience building high-performing teams and delivering quantifiable business impact with innovative, industry-leading analytical solutions across multiple industries.

Karthik has graduate degrees in Computer Science from Iowa State University (Ph.D. ComS’ 98; MS ComS ’93) with specialization in Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, and has spent over 20 years in the industry creating applied AI solutions at Allstate Insurance Company, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company (a part of the Allianz Group), ISO/Verisk, and Principal Financial Group. He has also been involved in two start-ups, including one as the CEO. He is an active speaker and has over fifty research and trade publications, including a book on Intelligent Agents published by MIT Press in 2001.

Chaz Beck (BS SE ’09) is a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft in Redmond, WA. After graduating with the second graduating class of Iowa State’s Software Engineering program, Chaz joined Microsoft as a Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) with the Microsoft Dynamics Corporate Performance Management (CPM) team. The CPM team develops and maintains two Microsoft products, Management Reporter and Connector for Microsoft Dynamics.

As a SDET, Chaz developed test automation and tools focused on Management Reporter, a financial reporting product used to integrate and report on data from other Microsoft Dynamics ERP products. Together with BJ Rollison (author of How We Test Software at Microsoft), Chaz developed a globalization tool used throughout Microsoft that allows test automation to change Windows user locale. Chaz has also developed several testing frameworks used at Microsoft internally for distributing and executing test automation, leveraging other Microsoft technologies that are part of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server.

Chaz is currently a Software Engineer II with the CPM team. In this role, his work has expanded to include not only test automation but also product development. Areas of focus include build, install, product configuration, ERP integration and cloud deployment, for both Management Reporter and Connector for Microsoft Dynamics.

Colleen Becker (BSComS ’00, BSChemE ’00) is a Programs Manager for Data Link Solutions at Collins Aerospace Mission Systems in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In prior roles within Collins, she has held software engineering and program management positions for military GPS receivers, Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) terminals, TacNetTM Weapons Data Links, and Tactical Communication Products for air and ground applications. She received her bachelor’s degree in computer science and chemical engineering from Iowa State University in 2000, and her MBA from the University of Iowa, in 2003.

Becker is the co-chair for the Collins campus team for Iowa State University, focusing on recruiting and research collaborations. She has served as an External Advisory Board member for the Iowa State University Program for Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE).

Katie Clausman (BS SE ‘11) is a Principal Software Engineer at nDimensional, an AI-powered digital twin platform that works with customers in a variety of industries. Customers are empowered to codify their domain knowledge into live, digital twins that can be deployed anywhere and used to monitor, diagnose, predict, and optimize assets to improve performance and reliability.

As nDimensional’s first technical hire ten years ago, she has helped shape the company and worked on every technical aspect including customer-driven product development, scalable backend machine learning algorithms, frontend web development, and leading international development teams. She has a passion for customer-driven product development and currently is a solutions architect as nDimensional expands its platform to new domains. While living in Boston, Katie was also a volunteer instructor with Girls Who Code and ran the information tent for the Boston Book Festival. She now works remotely and lives in Ames.

Sam Ellis (BS ComS ’83) is a former Program Director at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, and past member of the IBM Faculty Academy. In prior roles within IBM, he was Software Program Manager for the development of the BlueGene supercomputer, and led Development and Research projects on Stream Computing, Hypervisor Technologies, Systems Performance, and Operating Systems.

He received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Iowa State University in 1983, and his MBA from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Over the years he has collaborated with Iowa State on the development of the Software Engineering program, High Performance Computing Research, Big Data courses, and corporate recruiting. Sam also sponsored numerous IBM Faculty Awards and PhD fellowships. He has been a member of the External Advisory Councils for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the MBA Program at Iowa State University.

Bailey Frahm is a 2020 (BS) and 2021 (MS) graduate of Iowa State University, where she was a varsity letter-winner on the track and field team. As a student, she interned with Collins Aerospace and Nike. After graduating, Bailey assumed a position as a full-time application developer for Zirous in West Des Moines. She now works at the Green Bay Packers as a football application developer.

Brett Harper currently serves as the Vice President of Product Development at Workiva in Ames, Iowa. Harper has lived and worked in the Ames area for the past 20 years, first with Siemens PLM Solutions for 13 years making virtual prototyping visualization software, and most recently working at Workiva creating cutting-edge cloud software Wdesk, the collaborative work management platform for the enterprise.Brett attended Michigan State University where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science.

Nicholas J. Multari is the Senior Technical Advisor of Cybersecurity Research at Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL), supporting internally and externally funded research projects. He provides technical guidance, leads and participates in programs covering both Information Technologies (IT) as well as Operational Technologies (OT).Current and past programs include the discovery and assessment of OT (industrial control systems (ICS) and SCADA) systems, validation of firmware analysis tools, research studies in cyber resiliency and mission mapping, and the incorporation and validation of cyber resiliency into the requirements and design of Department of Defense programs. He strengthened existing and established new relationships with various government agencies resulting in further collaborations and transition of capabilities.

Nick collaborates with universities and industry on joint research. He currently serves on the advisory board to the NSF-funded Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure (CTSC) at Indiana University, the external advisory boards to the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (board chair) and the Software Engineering Department both at Iowa State University, and on the external advisory board to the University of Washington’s Information Security and Risk Management Certificate program.

Greg Shannon is the Chief Cybersecurity Scientist for Idaho National Labs and Chief Science Officer of Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CyManII). Shannon serves on the Board of Directors for Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS). He also served three years on the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, as well as in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy as the Assistant Director for Cybersecurity Strategy where he led the development of the 2016 Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on cybersecurity, science for security, critical infrastructure, resilience, and cyber threats.

Shannon received a BS in Computer Science from Iowa State University with minors in mathematics, economics, and statistics. He earned his MS and PhD in Computer Sciences at Purdue University, with a Packard Foundation fellowship. He is a member of the ACM and a Senior Member of IEEE.

Nischay Venkatram is a 2019 (BS) and 2020 (MS) graduate of Iowa State University. After interning with both LinkedIn and Amazon Web Services while a student at Iowa State, he assumed a full-time position as a software engineer at LinkedIn. He is the founder of Stealth Startup.

Ron Wolf has been a technology executive and hands-on practitioner in eight San Francisco Bay Area start-ups, as well as for dozens of consulting clients–ranging from the Fortune 100 to raw start-ups with big ideas–over the last 20 years. Specializing in team building and creating database, Middleware, Web (SOA & SAAS), and IT Management products, Ron turns new architectural possibilities into products with real value.Ron has B.S. (Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi) and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Iowa State University where he also worked as an IBM Mainframe Systems Programmer.

Then, moving to Silicon Valley and joining his first startup, Molecular Design, as their first Computer Science trained employee among 60 chemists, Ron was able to improve performance of their landmark organic chemical database by 3 orders of magnitude. Taking note of his success, former IBM Executive and ISU Alumnus Bob Evans recruited Ron to Foothill Research where he had the honor to work closely with Evans and his portfolio companies and Japanese partners. Moving on to Gupta Corp, which pioneered the PC client/server revolution, Ron and his team created the first multi-database middleware, SQL-Net.

In 1994, Ron co-founded NetSource, one of the first large website creation companies, and originated, documented, and taught the now commonplace website creation methodology. More recently as head of development at Keynote Systems, a performance management services company, Ron has architected and implemented a massive distributed platform with over 1,500 measurement servers in 50 cities worldwide, feeding 50M+ data points per day to a unique real-time data warehouse.

More recently, Ron has provided business strategy, requirements gathering, product design, product marketing, project management, and technical advice to clients in the SOA, SAAS, database, cloud, and media server spaces.