For this episode, we look back at 2024 and all of the wonderful guests we talked with. Thank you to everyone who listens and thank you to each of our guests:

Jalal Sarabadani

Kolina Koltai

Raffaelle Ciriello

Aidan Walker

Adam Hood

Doga Kurcuoglu

Thomas Smith

Joey Avraham

Denis Sitailo

Karl Swanson

Anna Klis

David Gunkel

Pete Pachal

Thomas Higgins

Happy New year to everyone!

For this episode, The Gateway is excited to speak with Thomas Higgins! Thomas is currently the supply chain optimization manager at Winland Foods. His professional background involves experience related to supply chain and inventory management, production and manufacturing planning, data analytics, data engineering, and machine learning applications. He has been working in the supply chain management and analytics space for the last 8 years.

Amin and Biagio pull the curtains back on all things at the end of the semester.

For this episode, we explore the impact of social media and the consumption of information in academic spaces.

Pete Pachal is the Founder and CEO of The Media Copilot, a newsletter and podcast about how generative AI is changing the media. He also teaches creative professionals in journalism and PR about how to use AI tools, and he consults with companies of all sizes on how to incorporate generative AI into real work. Pete has a long career in journalism, previously holding senior roles in global newsrooms such as CoinDesk and Mashable. As a thought leader in tech, crypto, and AI, he often appears on TV news, including appearances on Fox Business, CNN, and The Today Show. He also puts his encyclopedic knowledge of Doctor Who to good use in his side hustle, the popular podcast Pull To Open

For this episode, The Gateway is excited to welcome David J. Gunkel (PhD Philosophy). David is an award-winning educator, researcher, and author, specializing in the philosophy of technology with a focus on the moral and legal challenges of artificial intelligence and robots. He is the author of over 115 scholarly articles and has published seventeen books, including The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots, and Ethics (MIT Press 2012), Of Remixology: Ethics and Aesthetics After Remix (MIT Press 2016), Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond (MIT Press 2023), and Handbook on the Ethics of AI (Edward Elgar 2024). He currently holds the position of Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University.

For this episode the gateway is excited to welcome Professor Anna Klis. Anna earned her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in May 2015 and joined NIU the following August. Anna is a microeconomist who applies the techniques of game theory to questions of public economics and externalities. She is also a faculty associate with the NIU Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability, and Energy and the School for Public and Global Affairs.

For this episode the gateway is excited to welcome Dr, Karl Swanson. Karl brings over ten years of combined experience in data science and informatics at the intersection of the clinical and biomedical domains. Karl's passionate about developing innovative applications using artificial intelligence for clinical use cases. Karl holds a D.O. in Osteopathic Medicine, an M.S. in Computational Biology, and a B.S. in Biology. Karl has completed a residency in internal medicine and started a fellowship and combined research post-doc in clinical informatics at UCSF, but left to found a company towards this same aim.

The Gateway is excited to welcome Denis Sitailo a Principal Technical Program Manager with the GE Healthcare IT Business Development Team. Denis has been with the company for 15 years, starting as an intern in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Along his journey, he held multiple positions ranging from completion of the Information Technology Leadership Program, to running IT Infrastructure Integrations for GE Healthcare, GE Digital, and GE Corporate. In his various roles he has made significant contributions to integrating 30+ M&A deals, enhancing GE's digital footprint, and streamlining numerous processes. His expertise spans from understanding wide-ranging technology stacks, assessing W2W business processes, enterprise applications, change management, user enablement, and PMO/program management. Denis holds a bachelor's degree from Loyola University Chicago in Communications Networks and Security. Denis lives in Naperville, IL with his wife and two daughters. Outside of work he enjoys camping, gardening, cryptocurrency, and supporting Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression.

For this episode, The Gateway is excited to welcome Joey Avraham. Joey is a technology sales executive at Microsoft. Joey graduated from NIU in 2008 with a degree in accountancy and again in 2011 with an MBA. Joey has worked in Technology since 2008 starting his career at Dell and has worked at major companies like Google and Microsoft. Joey has 17 years of experience in tech sales with a specialty on Academic Medical Centers and R1 Higher Education Institutions.