CITRIS and the Banatao Institute are pleased to introduce new directors coming on board to support an expanded set of programs for the multicampus institute, the result of an organization-wide strategic planning process initiated last year.
“We welcome our new colleagues, who will help CITRIS address today’s technology challenges, from people-centric tech for sustainability, health, and infrastructure, to social responsibility, inclusion, and the future of work in an era of artificial intelligence,” says Costas Spanos, CITRIS director and Andrew S. Grove Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley.
Connie Chang-Hasnain, John R. Whinnery Distinguished Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, is the new faculty director of the Berkeley Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory at CITRIS, as of January 1. Chang-Hasnain joined the Berkeley faculty in 1996. In 2014, she co-founded the Tsinghua Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, which she continues to co-direct. She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2018.
John Zysman, professor emeritus of political science at UC Berkeley, is the faculty director of the new Future of Work research thrust at CITRIS. He directs the Work and Intelligent Tools and Systems (WITS) working group. As founding co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), Zysman bridges academic research with public and private sector engagement. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1974.
Maher Hakim, Ph.D., is the new executive director of the CITRIS Foundry, the in-house innovation accelerator launched in 2013. Hakim brings more than 25 years of experience in innovation and entrepreneurship – from co-founding several tech start-ups in Silicon Valley to founding the entrepreneurship center at Carnegie Mellon’s Qatar Campus and heading up Qatar Science and Technology Park. Hakim takes the helm of the Foundry after its five-year review and expanded mission as an innovation hub for deep technology.
Jill Finlayson, a Berkeley alumna (Class of ’87), is the new director of the Women in Technology Initiative, coming most recently from Singularity University Ventures. She has worked with TechWomen, a program of the U.S. State Department, and several Silicon Valley startups, nonprofits, and foundations. The Women in Tech Initiative was jointly launched in 2017 by CITRIS and the UC Berkeley College of Engineering to advocate for women in technical fields to be proportionately represented and equitably compensated throughout the professional ranks.
Brandie Nonnecke, Ph.D., is the founding director of the CITRIS Policy Lab launched last fall. She co-directs the CITRIS Tech for Social Good Program at UC Berkeley and UC Davis, supporting student-led tech development in the interest of society. Nonnecke is a fellow at the World Economic Forum, where she serves on the Council on the Future of the Digital Economy and Society. She was named a RightsCon Young Leader in Human Rights in Tech in 2018.
Carolyn Remick, the first director of development at CITRIS, moves across the way from the Berkeley Water Center in O’Brien Hall. She brings considerable expertise in campus administration and institutional fundraising from having served as a major gifts proposal development officer in the College of Engineering and most recently as executive director of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center on Water-Energy Technologies.
The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute, headquartered at UC Berkeley, is one of four Governor Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation established by the State of California in 2001. With sites at UC Davis, UC Merced, and UC Santa Cruz, CITRIS is an interdisciplinary research organization driving innovations in technology for social good.