October 29 – OPENING PLENARY SESSION
Dr. DeRionne Pollard was named president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) in July of 2025. Her passion for higher education has driven her leadership in several roles, most recently as the president of Nevada State University, Montgomery College (MD), and Las Positas College (CA).Pollard’s career in higher education began in the classroom teaching English and she remains deeply committed to life-long learning for her students and herself. A student-centered ethos is at the core of her leadership and she is a champion for access, fairness, and opportunity for all. Throughout her career, Pollard’s vision has been grounded in a belief that higher education is a pillar of economic mobility and community strength.
Pollard’s experience in the higher education sector is rich, having served on the American Association of Community Colleges’ 21st Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges, the Commission on Academic, Student, and Community Development, and the Board of Directors. Pollard is a member of the National Board of Directors and Executive Committee for Generation Hope, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the success of teen parents and parenting college students.
Pollard was named one of Washington’s 100 Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian Magazine, won a 2017 Academic Leadership Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and a Visionary Award from the Washington Area Women’s Foundation. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies in higher education from Loyola University Chicago.
Pollard is the first woman to be named president and CEO of AACC and now serves as the nation’s leading advocate for community colleges.
Victor R. McCrary currently serves as vice provost for national security innovation at the Catholic University of America. Previously, he served as the vice president for research and professor of chemistry at the University of the District of Columbia, as vice chancellor for research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and as the first vice president for research and economic development and professor of chemistry at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to that, McCrary was the Business Area Executive for Science & Technology and principal professional staff at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory where he directed internal research and development funding to develop new core competencies and innovations in the areas of national security and space technologies for civilian and military applications.McCrary started his career at AT&T Bell Laboratories-Murray Hill as a postdoc and then as a member of the technical staff before being selected to be a program manager with the Advanced Technology Program and becoming the first chief of the Convergent Information Systems Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). At NIST, he led the first efforts to develop industry standards for electronic books, where he was a co-recipient of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Gold Medal for his efforts. He is a former national president of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers and a fellow of the American Chemical Society.
McCrary was a member of the NSB class of 2016 – 2022 and was reappointed to the class of 2022 – 2028. In 2025, he was appointed as NSB Chair.
V. Celeste Carter served as program director of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Advanced Technological Education program from 2009 to 2025, leading one of the most significant skilled technical workforce grantmaking programs in the federal government. Carter joined the Division of Biological and Health Sciences at Foothill College in 1994 to develop and head a Biotechnology workforce program. She was the recipient of an NSF Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) award, which produced a set of case studies and associated laboratories with biotechnology industry partners.From 2001-2003 and 2007-2008, she served as a program director in the NSF’s DUE. She returned to Foothill College following each of these rotations to resume her position as director for both the college’s biotechnology and bioinformatics programs. Carter accepted a permanent program director position in NSF’s DUE in 2009, where she led the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program for 16 years, supporting skilled technical workforce programs across the NSF.
During her tenure, she served as the NSF’s STEM Education Directorate representative to the Division of Polar Programs from 2012-2014, and worked on the Advanced Manufacturing Initiative Working Group, leading to the ATE program supporting collaborations across the ManufacturingUSA Institutes network.
She served as a co-chair of the FC-STEM Undergraduate Education Interagency Working Group, and supported the National Science Board Special Task Force on the Skilled Technical Workforce and the NSF director on the President’s National Council for the American Worker. She participated in the interagency group supporting the U.S. Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing, Education and Workforce Development efforts, and was a member of the interagency bioworkforce group supporting the president’s executive order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy.
She received her Master’s from Harvard University and PhD from the Pennsylvania State University School of Medicine, both degrees in microbiology. She completed postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. G. Steven Martin at the University of California at Berkeley.
Closing Plenary Speaker: Friday, October 31
Keynote Address: Future-Facing, Technician-Ready: Navigating the New Landscape of Work, Innovation, and AI
Acclaimed futurist and trendcaster, Dr. Shawn DuBravac is author of the New York Times Best Seller Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Transform the Way We Work, Live, and Communicate, which explores how the world’s mass adoption of digital technologies portends the beginning of a new era for humanity in the realms of business, healthcare, finance, transportation, and culture.DuBravac is an internationally-recognized thought leader and top-rated keynote speaker, delivering pragmatic and provocative insights on the trends, technologies, and paradigms transforming the globe. His research focuses on the forces shaping tomorrow that are percolating on the periphery of society and business today. By providing an elevated view of developing trends, DuBravac empowers leaders and their organizations to improve strategic decision-making capabilities by understanding the changing landscape and identifying the opportunities that lie ahead.
DuBravac is president of Avrio Institute. Borrowing from the Greek Αύριο meaning tomorrow, the Institute helps leaders prepare for uncertain and divergent futures. His clients include Fortune 100 and Global 1000 companies, scrappy start-ups, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Grounded in economics, DuBravac served over 12 years as chief economist for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer tech companies, and owner and producer of CES.
DuBravac writes extensively on disruptive technological shifts and has been widely published on the topics of technology, finance, and economics. His analysis has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Wired, Los Angeles Times, Barron’s and on-air with CNBC, Bloomberg, NPR, CBS, and other media outlets. DuBravac has been named one of the top 50 futurist speakers to have at your conference by Readwrite, one of 27 finance thought leaders to read and follow by Prophix, and to Dealerscope’s “40 under 40” list of people to watch in the technology industry. He is a past-President of both the CFA Society of Washington, DC and the Conference of Business Economists, a founding trustee of the CTA Foundation, and a past board member of the National Association of Business Economists.
DuBravac has taught at the George Washington University School of Business, American University’s Kogod School of Business, the George Mason University School of Business, Marymount University School of Business, and the University of Mary Washington. He holds economic degrees from Brigham Young University and George Mason University.