With an extensive background in visual effects and animation, Gersh's work has appeared in over two dozen major motion pictures, including the “Star Wars,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Harry Potter” franchises. Most recently, he worked at ImageMovers Digital (a Disney company), on the CG feature, “Mars Needs Moms” and was part of the lighting team in Disney's “A Christmas Carol.”

During his tenure at George Lucas' visual effects division, Industrial Light + Magic (ILM), Gersh worked on “Forrest Gump” and lighted the photorealistic Davy Jones character and his crew of computer-generated pirates in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Prior to ILM, Gersh worked at Rhythm & Hues Studios in Hollywood, mastering software and computer-graphics production techniques and working on a variety of television spots, including the Coca-Cola polar bear campaign. In addition, Gersh's personal artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of American Illustration in New York City and at various art shows throughout San Francisco, and has been published in leading illustration annuals. He has created artwork for private, corporate and nonprofit clients.

Gersh teaches virtual reality, animation and digital visual effects to high school students at Marin School of the Arts. He also teaches at Academy of Art University, and he and his wife started a company, Enriching U, to inspire kids with afterschool programs and summer camps in a variety of digital and visual subjects. He resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three sons.

Mahadevan, who has more than 25 years of financial market experience, worked for New York investment bank Morgan Stanley for 19 years and Salomon Brothers for 8 years. He currently is managing director in Morgan Stanley's risk management department, where he leads a team of 50 professionals focused on model risk management and financial regulation implementation covering broad areas of institutional securities, risk modeling and capital planning.

Mahadevan has been a highly ranked strategist in Institutional Investor's annual Fixed Income Research survey for 12 years, and also has led research efforts covering equity derivatives strategy and quantitative analysis. At both banks, he worked closely with institutional investors and regulators on investment strategy, market insights, research frameworks, bespoke analyses and risk management.

He has a unique background, including undergraduate and graduate education in computer science at the University of California and Columbia University, and was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories before joining the financial industry. Mahadevan resides with his wife and children in Tenafly, NJ.

Smart-Ashburn is an AVP of technology at AT&T, where she leads a software-delivery organization responsible for personalization/machine-learning technologies and web-based OTT streaming. Prior to AT&T, she held several leadership roles at DIRECTV, including director of middleware development, senior director of enterprise integration & offers, and VP of development, where she was responsible for technical development and delivery of the company's suite of IT applications. Smart-Ashburn started her career at Hughes Aircraft Co. as a software engineer responsible for designing, programming and deploying relational database applications supporting the B2 radar systems.

An active alumna who serves on the UCI Diversity Committee for ICS and Engineering and on the ICS Leadership Council, Smart-Ashburn has been an active participant and advocate for the Undergraduate Mentorship Program in both schools.

Steckler, Avast's chief executive officer and one of its directors, helped transform the company from a sub-$20 million regional business into a $750 million full-service global security provider seeking to make the internet safe from cyberattacks.

Prior to joining Avast in 2009, Steckler was senior vice president of worldwide consumer sales at Symantec Corp., which he joined in 2000 as vice president of public sector business. In that role, he started Symantec's business of serving U.S. local, state and federal governments. He also held the position of vice president for Asia/Pacific and Japan, responsible for all enterprise and consumer business in that region. Before joining Symantec, Steckler had 20 years of experience in software development, systems analysis and engineering, project management and business development.

In addition to his ICS degree, Steckler earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at UCI.

Haroun is business vice president and client account manager for Jacobs, a Fortune 500 company that delivers solutions for a more connected, sustainable world. He joined Jacobs in 2017 through the acquisition of CH2M HILL, where he served for 16 years in multiple leadership positions, most recently as client account manager for Southern California infrastructure clients. Haroun's experience includes performance and delivery of significant highway, rail, aviation and ports transportation projects in Southern California, with a constructed value exceeding $5 billion. He has completed projects for transportation agencies including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the San Diego Association of Governments and the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

Haroun has served as a national committee member for the ASCE Diversity and Women in Civil Engineering (CDWCE) committees, and as co-chair of the Calmentor San Diego A&E Small Business Mentoring Program, which helps to increase the pool of small businesses in the transportation field. Through this program, he has overseen the mentoring of seven small businesses. He has received a number of technical awards from his peers and has been involved in leadership positions with the American Society of Civil Engineers and other professional groups in Southern California. Haroun earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from UC Berkeley and a master's in civil engineering from UCI. He is a State of California Registered Civil Engineer.

Miller began her career in 1994 as an assistant engineer in the Water Resources Group with RBF Consulting. Throughout her 23 years of employment with RBF, she was promoted to project engineer, project manager and eventually vice president, responsible for managing the Irvine office's water resources department. In 2017, Miller joined Hazen and Sawyer, where she is currently vice president and operations manager specializing in planning, design and construction of water supply, treatment, storage and conveyance facilities. She also manages and oversees a team of environmental engineers and scientists for Hazen's Irvine office.

An active member of the UC Irvine Affiliates Group since 2003, Miller has served as the organization's president for two consecutive terms, and also is a member of AWWA, ASCE, AMTA, CA-NV AWWA and the CA Water Reuse Association. Additionally, she served on the Board of Directors for the Orange County Branch of ASCE and has participated in the ASCE Orange County Report Card since 2005. She won an ASCE Engineer of Merit award 2011.

In her free time, Miller enjoys running, hiking, road cycling and mountain biking. She has hiked Yosemite's Half Dome, Clouds Rest and the High Sierra Loop, and this past year, she hiked the Grand Canyon, Rim-to- Rim.

Sanchez is the senior director of product development at Glaukos, where he is working on new minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) implants. He is a subject-matter expert for risk analysis and human factors/usability, with over 17 years of ophthalmology research and development focused on glaucoma and retina surgical therapies, from standalone MEMS-based implants to surgical consoles. He has been awarded 22 patents in the field.

His graduate work under Professor David Reinkensmeyer in passive and active robotic, position- tracking systems for use by stroke survivors has led to an awarded patent and has been licensed by Hocoma and marketed as Armeo Spring (https://www.hocoma.com/us/solutions/armeo-spring/). Sanchez is a former UCI Samueli School adjunct faculty member.

Vakhshoori is founder, chairman and CEO of Pendar Technologies, which develops sophisticated spectroscopic platforms for diverse markets, including life sciences, standoff detection and gas analysis. Previously he was founder and CEO of Ahura Scientific, a high-tech venture-backed company that he grew to $70 million in revenue, and which was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2010. Prior to Ahura Scientific, he was co-founder of Coretek Inc., a venture-backed company, later bought by Nortel Networks, which brought a new class of tunable lasers based on microelectromechanical (MEM) technologies to the fiberoptic telecommunication market. He also was a scientist at Bell Laboratories.

Vakhshoori has more than 60 granted patents and 50 scientific publications. He has appeared on the cover of Bell Lab News and in several articles in national newspapers for his invention of the Z-laser in 1993. In September 2017, his work was highlighted on the cover of Science Translational Medicine, a high-impact scientific journal. His honors include the Laser Focus World's Commercial Technology Achievement Award; Time Magazine Tech Pioneers; Entrepreneur of the Year/Ernst & Young Hall of Fame inductee; and Inc. Magazine's top-100 companies in the U.S. Vakhshoori earned his UCI engineering degree with minors in physics and biology, then earned his doctorate at UC Berkeley in electrical engineering. He and his wife, Julia Simms Holderness, have two young children and reside in Cambridge, Mass. For the last 10 years, he and his brother have managed the Vakhshoori Scholarship Foundation for promising Zoroastrian youth.

Binderbauer is the architect of research and development at TAE Technologies, a clean-fusion energy technology company, and is a co-inventor of many of the company's technological advancements.

An expert in reactor kinetics, equilibrium and stability of advanced beam-driven Field-Reversed Configurations and aneutronic fusion systems, he has dedicated the past two decades to advancing the company's knowledge and technology. Recently, Binderbauer has focused on reactor physics, engineering and enabling technologies, and a wide array of applications of the core TAE technologies – from medicine to isotope production and chemical processing. He holds more than 40 issued and pending U.S. patents and numerous international technology patents, and has authored or co-authored many peer-reviewed publications in the areas of plasma physics and fusion.

Gerace serves as a trustee of the UC Irvine Foundation and past president of UCI's Alumni Association. He was also the inaugural chairman of the School of Physical Sciences Leadership Council, where he continues to assist in monetizing intellectual property and facilitating industry collaborations. He received the school's Distinguished Alumnus award in 2015.

Currently president of DiaSorin Molecular, a global diagnostic company focusing on detection of infectious diseases, oncology and genetic disorders, Gerace also co-founded Calabri Biosciences, LLC, which invests in biosensor/digital health technologies.

Previously, he was president and CEO of Freedom Meditech, a company commercializing non- invasive disease detection and monitoring products, which he sold to Chinese company Sinocare, Inc. Prior to Freedom Meditech, he led the Applied Market division at Life Technologies (acquired by Thermo Fisher), which served the human-identification, food-safety and animal-health testing segments. Early in his career, Gerace conducted ophthalmic biomedical research in UCI's Department of Ophthalmology and then as a research chemist at Allergan Medical Optics, where he was principal inventor on four U.S. patents.

In addition to his UCI bachelor's degrees, Gerace earned an MBA from Pepperdine University. He is a board member for the Iacocca Family Foundation, a non-profit organization with the objective of accelerating the cure for Type-1 Diabetes.

MacMillan was born in Bellshill, Scotland, and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he worked with Dr. Ernie Colvin. In 1990, he began his doctoral studies under the direction of Professor Larry Overman at UC Irvine. After earning his doctorate, he was a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Dave Evans at Harvard University. He began his independent career at UC Berkeley in July 1998, before moving to Caltech in June 2000, as the Earle C. Anthony Chair of Organic Chemistry. In 2006, MacMillan moved to the East Coast as the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University, where he also served as department chair from 2010-15.

Steckler, Avast's chief executive officer and one of its directors, helped transform the company from a sub-$20 million regional business into a $750 million full-service global security provider seeking to make the internet safe from cyberattacks.

Prior to joining Avast in 2009, Steckler was the senior vice president of worldwide consumer sales at Symantec Corp., which he joined in 2000 as vice president of public sector business. In that role, he started Symantec's business of serving U.S. local, state and federal governments. He also held the position of vice president for Asia/Pacific and Japan, responsible for all enterprise and consumer business in that region. Before joining Symantec, Steckler had 20 years of experience in software development, systems analysis and engineering, project management and business development.

In addition to his physical sciences degree, Steckler earned a bachelor's degree in information and computer sciences at UCI.