Administration
Chris Dellarocas is Boston University’s Associate Provost for Digital Learning & Innovation and Richard C. Shipley Professor of Management at the Questrom School of Business.
Chris leads the advancement of activities and strategies that enhance education at Boston University through the use of digital technologies. He collaborates with schools and colleges to ensure the alignment of digital strategies and the introduction of new technologies that further the University’s progress as a 21st century global research institution. In addition to overseeing BU’s Digital Learning Initiative (DEI), Chris works in concert with other members of senior academic leadership to provide guidance to the University’s Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL), to the Educational Technology team (EdTech) and to the Office of Distance Education (ODE) through a close partnership with the Metropolitan College. Chris led BU’s involvement as part of the edX consortium, including the development of BU’s first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and facilitated campus-wide experiments in digital learning through the Digital Learning Initiative (DEI) grants program.
Linda Nulty: Finance and Operations Manager
Linda started her BU career in 2010 in Human Resources, and in 2013 joined the business office of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 2016 she joined DL&I, which was a brand new organization within the Provost’s office. As DL&I’s Finance and Operations Manager, Linda is responsible for following BU compliance on all budgeting, personnel administration, payroll, and purchasing for the department. Linda has a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing with a concentration in Economics from Roger Williams University and holds a certificate in Human Resources from Quincy College.
Maureen McCarthy: Communications Manager
Maureen leads the communications strategy and implementation for the Office of Digital Learning & Innovation. Prior to joining Boston University, Maureen served as editorial director for four wellness magazines and several award-winning websites, managed email and social media campaigns, and successfully developed editorial and medical advisory boards. Maureen’s communications career also includes serving as editor, writer and content strategist for Boston Children’s Hospital. As editor, she covered pediatric medical news and proudly co-developed the “Gender Identity & Pronoun Use”—a guide for pediatric healthcare professionals. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism/Communications from Emerson College and volunteers for Boston Children’s Yawkey Family Inn, the hospital’s patient-family housing program.
Tina Nguyen: Administrative Coordinator
Tina provides administrative support to the DL&I Directors, their teams, and to DL&I’s Financial Manager. She is responsible for scheduling, event planning, student employees, shopping and procurement, and associated clerical work. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Brandeis University and earned her M.Sc. in Global Marketing Management program at BU’s Metropolitan College.
Alexis Williams: Administrative Assistant
Alexis provides administrative support to the Digital Learning & Innovation Associate Provost, Chris Dellarocas. Alexis also works on communications for Digital Learning & Innovation. She is a recent graduate of Bard College, where she majored in Studio Arts and minored in Media Studies. Her passions for painting and digital art inspired her year-long Senior Thesis and art show, entitled Lifecasting & Ubiquitous Relationships. Alexis is an avid pursuer of accessible media. During her time at Bard she led the filming, post-production and advertising for the Experimental Humanities Media Corps. Alexis has created digital projects, designed websites, generated promotional videos and graphic design content for a number of nonprofits, and for historical societies such as the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Partnership in Hyde Park and Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business.
The Center for Teaching & Learning
Sarah Madsen Hardy: Interim Director
Sarah Madsen Hardy is the interim director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, where she oversees the programming, consults with faculty and administrators, and collaborates with the CTL team as they offer workshops, consultations, and faculty learning communities that foster a culture of excellent and innovative teaching. She has a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature and comes to the CTL from the CAS Writing Program, where she is a master lecturer. In addition to her years in the classroom, she brings to the interim role experience as associate director of the Writing Program, where she has supported colleagues in experimenting with new pedagogies and course models, contributed to equity and inclusion initiatives, and collaborated closely with the CTL around the Hub. Her current research centers on information literacy habits of mind in the first year writing classroom.
Brad Wheeler: Assistant Director
Brad helps instructors develop learning-centered teaching practices with a focus on the purposeful use of emerging technologies and digital innovations in the classroom and beyond. Brad is completing his Ph.D. in learning technologies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has researched how faculty design and implement courses that incorporate technology.
Jean Otsuki: Learning Experience Designer
Jean helps faculty and graduate student instructors to grow as teachers. She offers individualized consultations, facilitates workshops, and fosters learning communities. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Yale and has taught literature and writing courses at the college and high school levels.
Mint Sayabovorn : Administrative Coordinator
Mint Sayabovorn is an Administrative Coordinator at the Center for Teaching and Learning. She provides various administrative support to the Director of the CTL and the Learning Experience Designers. Her responsibilities include event planning, scheduling, and communications. In May 2018, she graduated from Boston University with a B.A in International Relations with a functional track in International Systems and World Order and a regional track in Asia as well as Minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Mint has experience interning at a variety of nonprofit organizations in both the Greater Boston area and in Sydney, Australia.
Emily Gamber: Administrative Coordinator
Em Gamber is an Administrative Coordinator at the Center for Teaching & Learning. Em comes to Boston University from Wellesley College where she worked in the Provost Office on Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. Her past work has ranged from women’s public policy to historical interpretation to building hiking trails, and she hopes to bring her diverse skill set to support the growth of the CTL. Em received her B.A. in American Studies & Gender Studies from Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA.
Educational Technology
Ernie Perez: Director of Educational Technology
Ernie Perez serves as the Director of Educational Technology for Digital Learning & Innovation for Boston University, where he plays a leading role in the visioning, management, selection, and deployment of enterprise-level educational technology services. He leads and oversees several teams including educational technologists, platform administrators, and instructional designers in the educational technology organization.
Ernie holds a M.S. in Adult, Occupational and Continuing Education and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Kansas State University.
Amod Lele: Lead Educational Technologist
Amod Lele helps faculty navigate a wide array of technologies for use in their classes and professional life. He leads and manages a team of educational technologists (Chihsun, Damon, Maria, and Monty). Amod is interested in the use and promotion of open educational resources (OER) in higher education. He holds a PhD from Harvard University in religious studies and has almost ten years of college and university teaching experience. He regularly teaches a course on Indian philosophy in the CAS philosophy department, and expects to teach a course on the Bhagavad Gītā for the Core Curriculum in 2019. As a lifelong learner, Amod also earned an M.S. degree in Computer Science from Metropolitan College in 2016. In his spare time, he publishes scholarly articles on Buddhist ethics and writes a biweekly updated blog on cross-cultural philosophy.
Chihsun Chiu: Educational Technologist
Chihsun Chiu (錡熏邱 Pinyin: qí xūn qiū), helps faculty get the best results out of the Learning Management System, Blackboard Learn. Her specialization includes the LMS, but also instructional design, and all other technologies that touch the LMS. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Technology with a Minor in Instructional Design from the University of Kansas, a Master of Arts degree in Digital Storytelling Media from Ball State University, and a B.A. in Radio, Television and Film from Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan. Chihsun’s doctoral dissertation elaborated on designing online instruction for students with learning disabilities and other struggling learners.
Damon M. Carlson: Educational Technologist
Damon advises faculty on the use of audience response systems, lecture capture, and other classroom technologies. He is an AVIXA Certified Technology Specialist (2013) and supports faculty with his expertise. Damon earned a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Management Information Systems from Salem State University (Salem, MA) and an M.Ed. degree from the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development at Boston University.
Damon is currently enrolled in a Graduate Certificate program at Umass-Boston with a concentration in Instructional Design.
Maria Afzal: Educational Technologist
Maria advises and assists BU faculty and staff in using various educational technologies, with a focus on ePortfolios, Adobe’s Creative Cloud and NVivo. She offers individualized consultations and leads regular training workshops for faculty and students.
Prior to coming to Boston University, Maria worked as an Educational Technologist at UMass Amherst IT where she supported Learning Management Systems (LMS), Audience Response Systems and Echo360 Lecture Capture platform. Maria holds a B.S (Hons) in Computer Science from Lahore, Pakistan, a Masters in Multimedia Arts and a M.Ed in Learning Technologies from UMass Amherst.
Monty Kaplan: Platform Administrator/Educational Technologist
Prior to coming to Boston University, Monty spent six years as an Instructional Technologist at Emerson College. During his time in Higher Education he supported technologies such as Learning Management Systems, ePortfolio, WordPress, and audio visual media related systems.
Monty holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a Minor in Entrepreneurship from Clark University, where he also worked as a Web Technical Assistant. Monty’s current responsibilities include the support of the BUx edX Platform, the program-level Assessment Management System, and general support of educational technologies.
Educational Platform Administration
Harry Lawrence: Manager, Educational Platform Administration
Harry is the primary Application Administrator for the Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard Learn, and the lecture capture solution, Echo360. His background working with the LMS and lecture capture spans many years, having served as a Client Support Specialist in the IT Help Center and also in Information Technology and Academic Technology at Simmons College. Harry is knowledgeable in many other educational technologies and supports faculty and the front-line Client Support Specialists in the IT Help Center when deep expertise is required. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Siena College and a Master of Science degree in Library and Information Science from Simmons College.
Wendell Seale: Senior Platform Administrator, Video Streaming
Wendell serves in the role of Platform Administrator for the streaming video platform for instructional video. Wendell has more than a decade of a track record of proven leadership in Video and Audio Production in higher education. Besides his expertise in the AV area Wendell has many years of experience with a plethora of instructional technologies, which he gained during his career at Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While his primary job designation is on the technical side Wendell is also an experienced and well-rounded educational technologist. Wendell’s academic credentials include a Bachelor of Science in New Media from Emerson College and a Master of Education in Instructional Technology from Cambridge College.
Jennifer MacLeod: Platform Administrator
Jennifer joined the Educational Technology team in June 2018, after the merger of Boston University and Wheelock College. She brings 18 years of experience with a broad spectrum of learning technologies and distance education to her position. Jennifer supports BU’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development with teaching out several programs that use the Moodle Learning Management System. In addition to her LMS related duties, she takes on responsibilities in the area of online assessment tools. Prior to serving at Wheelock College, Jennifer worked for the Colleges of the Fenway, Texas A&M University at Galveston (where she earned the Vice President Meritorious Service Distinguished Staff Award), and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Lo-Su King: Manager, Scanning Services
Lo-Su is responsible for scantron (form) based exam scoring, course evaluation, and data collection. The 2017 recipient of the Faculty Council’s John S. Perkins Award for Distinguished Service, Lo-Su joined BU 16 years ago as a Senior Program Coordinator of the Scanning Services and has been providing continuing scanning services to various departments and schools within BU as well as external clients such as Harvard University and Lesley College. In addition to her full time work at BU, Lo-Su taught Mandarin Chinese at Lexington Chinese School on Sunday for 20+ years and retired 5 years ago. Lo-Su is married with two children and two grandsons.
Lo-Su earned her Bachelor degree in Journalism from National Cheng-Chi University in Taiwan and worked as a reporter for Da-Hua Evening Newspaper from 1977 to 1979. Lo-Su came to the U.S. as an immigrant in late 1979 and lived in Charlottesville, VA for eight years. While in Charlottesville, Lo-Su worked at University of Virginia Pharmacology Department for more than five years before moving to Massachusetts.
Digital Initiatives
Romy Ruukel: Director
Romy leads the Digital Initiatives group, comprising of the Digital Education Incubator and the Instructional Production Services team. She joined BU after program managing at edX, a global e-learning and MOOC platform. She has MA degrees in human development & psychology (Harvard University) and humanities & leadership (New College of California) and a BA in English Language and Literature (Whitman College). Throughout her career, Romy’s work and research have focused on sociology of education, universal design for learning, and 20th-century social movements.
Diana Marian: Project Manager
Diana joined the Digital Education Incubator team after coordinating several projects within the Open Society Foundations network. She has managed innovative literacy initiatives, including adult education programs and the development of an online tool guiding legal comprehension. She holds a Master’s degree in International Education Policy from Harvard Graduate of School of Education, where she focused on education initiatives for 21st-century demands and strategic management of education non-profits. At the DEI, Diana works with faculty, staff, and other stakeholders to manage the development of MOOCs and the implementation of pilot projects using an Agile PM approach centered on design thinking.
Diane Carroll: Project Manager
Prior to joining Boston University, Diane managed product education projects at a large healthcare software company. With a focus on user experience, she led teams in designing and delivering scalable solutions that aligned to established learning principles and technologies. In addition to program and project management, Diane’s professional interests and experience include instructional design, process improvement, and change management. She holds a Master’s degree (Technical and Professional Writing) from Northeastern University and a Bachelor of Arts (Sociology) from the University of Virginia. Diane is an ESOL tutor with the Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts.
Robert (Bob) Heim: Senior Instructional Multimedia Producer
Bob has been shooting and editing video for 25 years. After graduating from UMass Boston, he started his video career at a Boston television station editing movies for content. Over the years, some of the organizations he has worked for include the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots; shooting two World Series and four Super Bowls.
David Charpentier: Senior Instructional Multimedia Producer
David is an experienced media producer and editor. After graduating from UNC’s School of Architecture, David grew into a career of media production and design, which he later amped up with an MFA in Film and Media Production from Boston University’s College of Communication. Before joining the Digital Learning & Innovation team, David worked freelance in New York, shooting digital media, writing and producing theatrical films and television shows, and directing and editing a wide range of commercials, lifestyle videos and educational media. As a media producer and technologist at DL&I, David is interested in crafting inclusive, interactive education experiences that use a combination of traditional lectures, collaborative online environments, and the ever-expanding world of digital media.
Joshua Mackler: Digital Learning Designer
With a rich background in multimedia, Josh facilitates the pre and post-production phases of digital learning projects for faculty. He joins Instructional Production Services after 7 years of creating countless interactive training modules for multinational corporations, universities, and museums. He is passionate about utilizing cutting-edge technologies to increase learner engagement and outreach. Josh graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in New Media from SUNY Purchase College, focusing on video production and interactive programming.