eCornell Advisory Board

John Siliciano, professor of law, became interim provost of Cornell on July 1, 2024. In this role, he acts as the university’s chief academic officer, chief budgeting officer, and first deputy officer to the president and works to enhance the university’s excellence in teaching, scholarship, and outreach.

Siliciano has a wealth of experience and expertise at Cornell, including as a long-serving college and university administrator and a long-time faculty member at Cornell Law School. As deputy provost from 2016 to 2022, he steered a wide range of academic and operational efforts, including dean searches, tenure and promotion reviews, support for department chairs, faculty policy oversight, and special projects and initiatives. He played an essential part in advancing Cornell’s academic initiatives, including the formation of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and developing and implementing the university’s plans for teaching and research continuity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to serving as deputy provost, Siliciano held leadership positions as vice provost and senior vice provost for academic affairs, amounting to 17 years of experience in the Provost’s Office. At Cornell Law School, Siliciano previously served as associate dean for academic affairs, vice dean, and interim dean.

Siliciano, a 1975 graduate of Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences (B.A. in history), was appointed to the Cornell Law School faculty in 1984 and promoted to full professor in 1990. As a scholar, he is a nationally recognized expert on torts and product liability. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, Siliciano clerked for Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Siliciano earned his M.P.A. degree at Princeton University and his J.D. degree at Columbia University, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review.

Paul Krause is the vice provost for external education at Cornell University and the Executive Director of eCornell.

Krause leads the university-wide effort to extend Cornell education to non-traditional students. He collaborates with academic units and faculty to plan and manage both open enrollment and custom learning programs.

Responsibilities include oversight of online professional development offerings through eCornell. The office also provides design, development, delivery, and recruitment operations for online and blended professional master’s degree programs. Cornell’s professional programs support lifelong learning for individuals who are interested in career advancement or pursuing academic interests. They also support organizational goals for workforce learning and development.

Since 2014, Krause has led Cornell’s efforts to drive online learning innovation and growth through eCornell. Previously, he worked as a senior leader in the EdTech and professional education industry.

He holds an MBA from the University of Rochester and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University.

Linda Nozick is Professor and Director of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. She is co-founder and a past director of the College Program in Systems Engineering and has been the recipient of several awards, including a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Clinton for “the development of innovative solutions to problems associated with the transportation of hazardous waste.” Dr. Nozick has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications, many focused on transportation, the movement of hazardous materials, and the modeling of critical infrastructure systems. She has been an associate editor for Naval Research Logistics and a member of the editorial board of Transportation Research Part A. Dr. Nozick has served on two National Academy Committees to advise the U.S. Department of Energy on renewal of their infrastructure. During the 1998-1999 academic year, she was a Visiting Associate Professor in the Operations Research Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Dr. Nozick holds a B.S. in Systems Analysis and Engineering from the George Washington University and an MSE and Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Greg Morrisett is the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech and a faculty member in the Computer Science Department at Cornell University. As Dean, he has overall responsibility for the campus, including the academic quality and direction of the Cornell Tech degree programs and research. Working with both internal and external stakeholders, Dean Morrisett is developing approaches for working with companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and early-stage investors, as well as overseeing the faculty recruitment and entrepreneurial initiatives of the campus.

Prior to joining Cornell Tech, Dean Morrisett was Dean of Computing and Information Science (CIS) at Cornell University from 2015-2019. Previously, he held the Allen B. Cutting chair in Computer Science at Harvard University from 2004-2015, where he also served as Associate Dean for Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Before Harvard, Dean Morrisett spent eight years on the faculty of Cornell’s Computer Science Department.

Dean Morrisett’s research focuses on the application of programming language technology for building secure, reliable, and high-performance software systems. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond and both his Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University.

Andrew Karolyi is the Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. He is a Professor of Finance and International Business as well as holder of the Harold Bierman Jr. Distinguished Professorship in the Johnson Graduate School of Management. Dr. Karolyi is also a Professor of Economics in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences.

A scholar in the area of investment management, with a specialization in the study of international financial markets, Dr. Karolyi has published extensively in journals in finance and economics, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies. He has also published several books and monographs, and his research is featured in print and electronic media such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Time, New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and CNBC. Dr. Karolyi recently completed a four-year term as executive editor of the Review of Financial Studies, one of the top-tier journals in finance. He has also served as an associate editor for a variety of journals, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Empirical Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Review of Finance, and the Pacific Basin Finance Journal.

Dr. Karolyi is a recipient of the Michael Jensen Prize for Corporate Finance and Organizations (2017), the Fama/DFA Prize for Capital Markets and Asset Pricing (2005), the William F. Sharpe Award for Scholarship in Finance (2001), the Journal of Empirical Finance’s Biennial Best Paper Prize (2006), and Johnson School’s Prize for Excellence in Research (2010). Dr. Karolyi leads various executive education programs in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, and he is actively involved in consulting with corporations, banks, investment firms, stock exchanges, and law firms. He is president-elect/program chair of the Western Finance Association, has served as a director of the American Finance Association, and is past chairperson of the board of trustees and past president of the Financial Management Association International. Dr. Karolyi received his B.A. (Honors) in Economics from McGill University and worked at the Bank of Canada for several years in its research department. He subsequently earned his MBA and Ph.D. degrees in Finance at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago.

Jens David Ohlin is the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. Professor Ohlin’s work stands at the intersection of four related fields: criminal law, criminal procedure, public international law, and the laws of war. Trained as both a lawyer and a philosopher, his research has tackled questions as diverse as criminal conspiracy and the punishment of collective criminal action; the philosophical foundations of international law; and the role of new technologies in warfare, including cyberwar, remotely piloted drones, and autonomous weapons.

Professor Ohlin’s latest research project involves foreign election interference. This project resulted in a monograph published on the eve of the 2020 election by the Cambridge University Press entitled “Election Interference: International Law and the Future of Democracy” as well as a forthcoming edited volume published by the Oxford University Press and written with Duncan B. Hollis entitled “Defending Democracies: Combating Foreign Election Interference in a Digital Age.”

Professor Ohlin is also a dedicated teacher and the sole author of three new casebooks in three different fields: “Criminal Procedure: Doctrine, Application, and Practice”; “Criminal Law: Doctrine, Application, and Practice”; and “International Law: Evolving Doctrine and Practice.” The “Criminal Procedure” book is also available in two splits: “Investigative Criminal Procedure” and “Adjudicative Criminal Procedure.”

In addition to dozens of law review articles and book chapters, Professor Ohlin has published several monographs and edited volumes, including “Interrogation and Torture: Integrating Efficacy with Law and Morality” with S.J. Barela, M. Fallon, and G. Gaggioli; “Oxford Handbook on International Criminal Justice” with K. Heller, F. Mégret, S. Nouwen, and D. Robinson; “Weighing Lives in War” with L. May and C. Finkelstein; “Research Handbook on Remote Warfare”; “Necessity in International Law”; “The Assault on International Law”; “Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World” with A. Altman and C. Finkelstein; “Cyberwar: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts” with C. Finkelstein and K. Govern; and “Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why” with George Fletcher. He is co-editor, with Claire Finkelstein, of the Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law, and a steering-board member of an international working group researching secondary liability for international crimes.

Alexander Colvin, Ph.D., ’99, is the Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean and the Martin F. Scheinman ’75, M.S. ’76, Professor of Conflict Resolution at Cornell University’s ILR School.

Dean Colvin’s research and teaching focuses on employment dispute resolution, with a particular emphasis on procedures in non-union workplaces and the impact of the legal environment on organizations. His current research projects include empirical investigations of employment arbitration and cross-national analysis of labor law and dispute resolution. Dean Colvin is the co-author of “An Introduction to U.S. Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations” (with T. Kochan and H. Katz) and of “Arbitration Law “( with K. Stone and R. Bales).

Dean Colvin received his J.D. in 1992 from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in 1999 from Cornell University. He received the 2003 Outstanding Young Scholar Award from the Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA) and the 2000 Best Dissertation Award from the IRRA for his dissertation entitled “Citizens and Citadels: Dispute Resolution and the Governance of Employment Relations.” Before joining the faculty of the ILR School, Dean Colvin taught at Penn State University from 1999 to 2008.

Kavita Bala is the Dean of Computer and Information Science (CIS) at Cornell University. She received her S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT, Bombay). Professor Bala co-founded GrokStyle and serves as its Chief Scientist, and she is a faculty Fellow with the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

Professor Bala specializes in computer vision and computer graphics, leading research projects in recognition and visual search; material modeling and acquisition; realistic, physically based rendering; and material perception. Her research has been adopted by industry in Autodesk’s core rendering engine and GrokStyle’s visual search.

Professor Bala is the Editor-in-Chief of Transactions on Graphics (TOG) and has served on over 60 editorial boards, advisory boards, and program committees in vision and graphics. She co-authored the graduate-level textbook “Advanced Global Illumination.” Her work on 3D mandalas was featured at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. Professor Bala has received a Google Faculty Research Award, the NSF CAREER award, and Cornell’s College of Engineering Fiona Li and Donald Li Excellence in Teaching Award (2015) and James and Mary Tien Excellence in Teaching Award (2006 and 2009).

David Erickson is the SC Thomas Sze Director and Sibley College Professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. He is also a joint Professor within the Division of Nutritional Sciences. His research focuses on: mobile and global health technology, medical diagnostics, microfluidics, photonics, and nanotechnology. Prior to joining the faculty, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology and he received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto. Research in the Erickson lab is or has been primarily funded through grants from the NIH, NSF, ARPA-E, ONR, DOE, DARPA, USAID, Nutrition International, and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Prof. Erickson has helped to found numerous start-up companies commercializing: high-throughput pharmaceutical instrumentation, biomedical diagnostics, and energy technologies including Halo Labs, VitaScan and Dimensional Energy. Dr. Erickson has received the DARPA-MTO Young Faculty Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Department of Energy Early Career Award, among others. In 2011 he was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE) by President Obama. For his efforts in co-founding the field of optofluidics, Erickson has been named a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

As general partner focused on business and tech-enabled services companies, Ralph brings years of experience to the table as both an operator and investor in companies across many sub-sectors that have harnessed technology and data to propel their growth. With a background in scientific research, Ralph evaluates companies, investments, and opportunities with rigor and precision—always looking to connect what he has seen in the past with a vision for the future. Ralph has been involved in a number of boards and will readily call upon his vast Rolodex to bring the best thinking to his companies.

Prior to joining ABS Capital, Ralph served as CIO/CTO of The Washington Post Company. During his tenure, Ralph worked with the Post’s six divisions on all major technology and development operations and investments. Ralph also served as founder and CEO of its electronic publishing subsidiary, known for its product innovation and new revenue models for electronic media, including www.washingtonpost.com.

Colleen L. Barry, a nationally and internationally recognized research scholar, educator and leader in the areas of mental health and addiction policy and policy communication, is the inaugural dean of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.

She formerly was the Fred and Julie Soper Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

As the founding dean, Dr. Barry has an influential role in building Cornell’s newest school into one of international prominence, developing its academic programs, partnerships across campuses and in major policy centers, and long-term mission to improve lives through evidence-based policy.

Dean Barry is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Social Insurance. While at Johns Hopkins, she was founding director of the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy and the Johns Hopkins StigmaLab. She co-chaired the Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and has served as a board member and vice president for the Association of Public Policy and Management.

Dean Barry’s research focuses on how health and social policies can affect a range of outcomes for individuals with mental illness and substance use and communities at risk for violence. She also studies how communication strategies can increase public support for evidence-based policies to improve the health and wellbeing of people with mental illness and substance use disorders and reduce stigma. She directed the NIMH funded pre- and post-doctoral mental health services and systems training program at Johns Hopkins. She has served as Principal Investigator of numerous large-scale research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and health-oriented foundations.

In addition, Dean Barry led major public opinion survey research projects including the bi-annual Johns Hopkins National Gun Policy Tracking Survey and the longitudinal Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Civic Life and Public Health Survey cohort study.  Examples of her contributions include widely cited public opinion research in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy that informed policymakers about effective strategies for reducing gun violence with broad public support, including among gun owners; and research to build an evidence base for public policies to combat the devastating opioid crisis in the U.S.

Dean Barry has authored more than 225 peer-reviewed publications on a range of health policy topics in top policy and medical journals, and considers communicating research findings a top priority. Through the pandemic, she was a regular guest host of her school’s podcast, “Public Health on Call,” leading conversations with experts.

Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Dean Barry was a faculty member at the Yale University School of Public Health from 2004-10. She began her career in government and legislative affairs in Washington, D.C., and worked as a state health policy analyst in Massachusetts.

Dean Barry received her Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University (2004), her Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1999), and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in political science and Russian language and literature from Drew University (1992).

Lynden Archer joined the Cornell University faculty in 2000. He received the Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University in 1993 and a B.S. degree in chemical engineering (polymer science) from the University of Southern California in 1989. During the period 1993-94 he was a postdoctoral member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and from 1994-1999 was a member of the chemical engineering faculty at Texas A&M University. During the period 2010-2016 he served as the Director of the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell, and in fall of 2017 was appointed Director of the Cornell Energy Systems Institute. Prof. Archer is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.

He was elected the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering on July 1, 2020.

His research contributions have been recognized with a variety of awards, including the National Science Foundation award for Special Creativity, the American Institute for Chemical Engineers Centennial Engineer & Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum awards, and the Thompson-Reuters “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” recognition in Materials Science. At Cornell, his contributions to teaching have been recognized with the James and Mary Tien’s award for excellence in teaching and thrice by Merrill Presidential Fellows as the most influential member of the Cornell University faculty.

Benjamin Z. Houlton is the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a Cornell University professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as well as Global Development. Houlton began his term on Oct. 1, 2020, as the 12th Cornell CALS dean. He serves as co-chair of Cornell’s 2030 Project: A Climate Initiative, mobilizing practical solutions that mitigate the impacts of climate change.

As a premier institution of scientific learning and discovery, Cornell CALS is a world leader in tackling the complex challenges of our time with a culture of interdisciplinary understanding and collaboration. It is home to Cornell University’s second largest total college population, with 3,600 undergraduate students, 1,020 affiliated graduate students, 350 faculty and 1,000 staff. The college offers 20+ majors and 40+ minors, managed by 16 academic departments and two schools. In fiscal year 2021, CALS led Cornell’s Ithaca campus with a total of $238 million in research expenditures.

Ben has published more than 130 works including peer-reviewed scientific articles, book chapters and published abstracts. An accomplished international scientist, his research interests include global ecosystem processes, climate change solutions, and agricultural sustainability. Ben’s work has been published in leading scientific journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and has been covered by news media including the New York Times, Scientific American, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, Discovery News, MSNBC/Today and the BBC. As part of his mission to connect scientific discovery with the public, he is also a frequent guest on regional and national news programs.

Ben is co-founder of The N3gative Company, which is empowering farmers and land managers with the tools to create, verify, and exchange permanent carbon dioxide removal in soil. The company’s approach will scale up permanent carbon dioxide removal in soils around the world to remove millions to billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year while also improving agricultural productivity. He is also founding principal investigator for the Working Lands Innovation Center, where he directs approximately 100 acres of farmland carbon sequestration projects to improve crop yields and create new financial markets for farmers and ranchers. He is a member of the Boyce Thompson Institute’s Board of Directors, serves on the eCornell and External Education Advisory Board and on the SUNY Cannabis Taskforce, and is a Cornell-appointed director for the Friends of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Ben is also the editor of Global Biogeochemical Cycles published by the American Geophysical Union, the world’s largest society promoting geophysical endeavors of Earth and space scientists. As dean, he shares responsibility for leadership of Cornell Cooperative Extension throughout New York state with the College of Human Ecology.

Prior to joining Cornell, Ben served on the UC Davis faculty since 2007, teaching global environmental studies with a co-appointment in the UC Agriculture Experiment Station. He also led their John Muir Institute of the Environment, bringing together more than 300 faculty affiliates, 350 postdoctoral researchers, staff, and students from across the university with the goal of devising innovative solutions to the environmental sustainability challenges of the 21st century. As part of the institute, he led the new OneClimate “Big Idea,” an inter-disciplinary, team-based approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help people, ecosystems, and agriculture adapt to an uncertain climate future. Ben served as faculty director of two diversity, equity and inclusion programs at UC Davis – EnvironMentors and SEEDS – and supported the launch of GOALS (Girls’ Outdoor Adventure in Leadership and Science) at the Muir Institute. He also worked with California tribes to empower the application of indigenous knowledge in agricultural and environmental sustainability. He has served as a scientific advisor to a Rockefeller Foundation and World Wildlife Fund project on sustainable agriculture, human nutrition, and climate solutions.

Ben received his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point in Water Chemistry, an M.S. from Syracuse University in Environmental Engineering Science, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He spent two years working as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford before joining the UC Davis faculty. Ben is the recipient of the Gene E. Likens Award from the Ecological Society of America, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Young Investigator Award, and the NSF-CAREER award.

Ben grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, solidifying his dedication to the environment at a young age while camping with his family throughout the Midwest and spending time on his great aunt and uncle’s dairy farm. His family legacy in agriculture spans the dairy, poultry, and grain commodities, and still includes one remaining family dairy farm in Kansas. He can often be found fly fishing, running, traveling internationally, and coaching his kids’ soccer teams in his spare time.

We are delighted to announce that Mary Loeffelholz has been named the new dean of the School of Continuing Education (Cornell SCE), effective March 1, 2023.

A professor of English at Northeastern University and former dean of Northeastern’s College of Professional Studies, Loeffelholz will also hold a position as professor in the Department of Literatures in English in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences.

As Cornell Provost Michael I. Kotlikoff notes in his announcement remarks:

“From its earliest days, Cornell — and SCE — has been a leader in continuing education, and Mary’s credentials as a visionary thinker and strategic administrator make her an ideal fit to build upon the school’s rich academic tradition… Mary brings to SCE an impressive track record for designing and implementing innovative academic programs, guiding strategic growth in enrollment, and advancing university initiatives in support of faculty and students.”

Read more about Loeffelholz and her vision for SCE in the Cornell Chronicle.

Loeffelholz received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University and a doctorate in English and American literature from Yale University. Upon graduating in 1986, she became an assistant professor in English, women’s studies, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In 1988, she joined the faculty at Northeastern.

Among her academic administration appointments, Loeffelholz has served at Northeastern as dean of the College of Professional Studies (2016-2021); vice provost for academic affairs (2008-16); special adviser to the president (2007-08); associate dean for the graduate school and faculty affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences (2006-07); and chair of the Department of English (2001-06).

Michael Goldstein is a Managing Director for Tyton Partners in the strategy consulting practice.

Mike Goldstein has a long history of close engagement with higher education. He was the founding Director of New York City Urban Corps, the nation’s first large-scale student intern program designed to support access for less affluent students through the use of the Federal Work Study Program. He went on to lead a Ford Foundation-supported effort to establish similar programs in cities across the U.S. He returned to New York City government as Assistant City Administrator and Director of University Relations. From there Mike joined the then-new University of Illinois Chicago campus as Associate Vice Chancellor for Urban Affairs and Associate Professor of Urban Sciences. In 1978, Mike joined the Washington, DC law firm of Dow Lohnes to establish a new legal practice focusing broadly on issues confronting higher education.

By 2014 when his firm merged with the global law firm Cooley LLP, the higher education practice he headed was the largest and one of the highest regarded in the country. Mike has been a pioneer in the development of alternative mechanisms and institutional structures for the delivery of high quality postsecondary education, including helping to accomplish substantial regulatory reforms that made telecommunicated and then online learning broadly available. He is the recipient of the WCET Richard Jonsen Award, CAEL’s Morris Keeton Ward, the President’s Medal from Excelsior College, and USDLA’s Distance Learning Hall of Fame Award, as well as an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Fielding Graduate University for his contributions to the field of adult learning.

He is a graduate of Cornell University and New York University School of Law, and was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He and his spouse Jinny, an education and media consultant and former head of education for the Public Broadcasting Service, live in Washington, DC.

Krishnamurty’s investment focus is on early-stage software companies that improve efficiencies in traditional industries. While sector agnostic, he uses his experience as a technologist and investor, who has grown companies and projects from an idea stage onwards, to help entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of growing a company. He serves as a Board Member of Agilis Commerce, a Cloquet Capital portfolio company.

Krishnamurty serves as an advisor and mentor to several companies at Cornell Tech and at a few accelerators in the New York metropolitan area. He is a visiting faculty at Cornell Tech’s MBA program bringing his entrepreneurial experience to the classroom.

Prior to joining Cloquet Capital, Krishnamurty was the founder and CEO of uReach Technologies a venture backed company for fourteen years until its sale. Before launching his company Krishnamurty worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories.

He holds a masters degree in computer science from Cornell University and a masters in mathematics from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. Other interests that he shares with his wife include mountain biking, electric cars, alternative energy, and golden retrievers.