Dr. Wes Wynens is the Director of the Leadership Education and Development Program for Student Life and is on the faculty in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. Dr. Wynens has more than twenty years of experience in applied leadership development, coaching, and leadership education. His interests are adaptive leadership and the effects of challenge and loss on leadership capacity. From 2004 to 2010, he was director of State Leadership Development Programs for the Carl Vinson Institute, where he founded the Georgia Leadership Institute and the Executive Leadership Program. He has been a consultant to Deloitte, Coca-Cola, BellSouth, NORTEL, and the Army Corp of Engineers. His professional affiliations include Pi Alpha Alpha, the OD Network, and the International Leadership Association.

Dr. Wynens holds a PhD in Public Administration from the University of Georgia with an emphasis on organization and team development.

Dr. Jeffrey Davis is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. He has been the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Class of 1940 W. Roane Beard Outstanding Teacher Award, HKN Richard M. Bass Outstanding Teaching Award, and the Class of 1934 Course Survey Award. He has heavily promoted STEM education throughout the state of Georgia, which resulted in him being a co-recipient of the Education Partnership Award at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Davis has also served as the faculty chair for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Student Faculty Committee for eight years, which promotes the interaction of students and faculty outside the classroom. He served for three years as a faculty advisor for the ThinkBig program here at Georgia Tech. He is currently the faculty advisor for a student led organization called Robogals that promotes female participation in engineering disciplines.

In research, Dr. Davis’ publications have been referenced over 2800 times by researchers throughout the world, and he has co-authored a book entitled Interconnect Technology and Design for Gigascale Integration, which was translated and republished in Chinese 2010. His current research interests are in exploring the low-frequency electrical properties of nanocomposite materials, and in 2012-2013 he was awarded the Georgia Tech Fund for Innovation in Research and Education (GT-FIRE) to pursue this avenue of research. Dr. Davis is currently involved in simulation and fabrication of solid-state nanocomposite materials that have extremely high-energy density for electrical energy storage.

Dr. Ilya Gokhman is the Faculty Lead of Grand Challenges. His academic appointment is split between Georgia Tech’s Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) office and the School of Public Policy. His primary areas of research and teaching focus on collaboration (leading, teaming, and organizing), innovation and decision-making, and the use of technology in collaborative processes. His current research projects include efforts to improve the collaboration of teams working in high-pressure environments, including astronaut and medical teams.

Dr. Gokhman’s work has been featured in a variety of outlets, including the Encyclopedia of Theory in Psychology, Acta Astronautica, Academy of Management, Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, International Leadership Association, Association for Leadership Educators, NASA’s Investigators Workshop, and International Astronautical Congress.

In addition to his academic pursuits, Dr. Gokhman aspires to bridge the science and practice of collaboration by engaging in applied opportunities to enhance the development of individuals and organizations. He has led or consulted on various private sector, NPO/NGO, and educational initiatives throughout Africa, Europe, and the US. He also holds a certificate in leadership coaching from the Neuroleadership Institute (formerly Results Coaching Solutions) in London, UK, and has worked with over 50 clients in this capacity.

Dr. Gokhman earned a PhD from Northwestern University in Media, Technology, & Society, an MS from Georgia Tech in Organizational Psychology, an MBA from a joint program between the University of Iowa and CIMBA (Italy), and degrees in Economics and Accounting from the University of Georgia.