Our experts in residence

Jesse is an engineering manager and active BU alum. He currently leads teams at ezCater – a Boston-based “Food for Work” startup – where he focuses on ML and AI-powered products. A 2016 graduate of Boston University’s College of Engineering, he earned a BS in Computer Engineering with a concentration in Technology Innovation. In addition to volunteering with Spark!, Jesse has served on the BU Young Alumni Council and now continues his engagement as a member of the Alumni Council.

Ayora is a software product leader and educator with experience in academic, non-profit, and corporate sectors. He takes a holistic approach to problem solving that blends business, design and technology frameworks. He is Vice President of AI Product Management at PTC, an engineering software company with 37,000+ customers worldwide. Ayora holds a Bachelor of Arts in History, a Bachelor of Science in Biology, a Master of Teaching, and a Doctorate in Education. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Stephen oversees data collection, analysis, and reporting for BU Sustainability on a range of topics such as energy, waste, green buildings, and transportation, and key reports such as BU’s GHG (greenhouse gas) inventory and STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System). He serves as a Committee Member on the STARS Steering Committee, and an Advisory Council Member on the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Adam is an entrepreneur, political organizer, and full-stack software engineer. He is founder and CEO of Civera, a small software consultancy in Cambridge whose mission is to liberate public data and improve government transparency. Civera’s flagship product is ElectionStats, a publishing platform used by seven states to make election results and voting statistics far more accessible to the public. Adam has also served as a leading advocate for ranked choice voting. He co-founded Rank the Vote in 2020 and ranked choice voting organizations in over 20 states, and was founder and Executive Director of Voter Choice Massachusetts (2016–2019), which became the largest statewide movement for ranked choice voting in US history. Adam has a Bachelor of Arts in History from Boston University and resides in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Since moving to the United States from Cameroon as a child, Kevin has always wanted to empower children, expand opportunities, and reduce disparities between communities. While working with Mass.gov, Kevin focused on improving constituent interactions with their government online, making processes easier and more accessible. As a Senior User Experience Designer, Kevin works with Red Hat to improve the discover, learn, try, and onboarding experiences across the open hybrid cloud. He sits on the board of directors of Virtual Activism and Afrihope, non-profits that strengthen marginalized communities through information and communication technologies, and contributes to the PatternFly design system and the Red Hat B.U.I.L.D. group.

Tom (he/him) is a housing policy professional and data scientist focused on making complex data sets and policy topics more accessible to a general audience using interactive tools and visualizations. Tom has over 15 years of experience in the affordable housing field, including developing database systems, designing metrics, and creating data tools and analytical reports. He has also led public policy research on transit-oriented development, housing production, affordability, land use, and housing stability. Tom has a bachelor’s degree in economics, a master’s in city planning from Boston University, and a master’s in urban informatics from Northeastern University.

Michelle is an associate professor emerita at the Boston University Department of Journalism. She retired in 2022, having taught a variety of courses focused on online journalism and media storytelling. A former editor of the Boston Globe and Boston.com and a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism, Michelle received the school’s distinguished alumni award in 2020 and the Online News Association’s Rich Jaroslovsky Founder Award in 2022. She was inducted into the Association of LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame in 2022 and named 2013 Educator of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists, where she served as the first Academic Representative on its board. She writes and edits AI Insider, a newsletter tracking the latest developments in artificial intelligence.

As a mission-driven data engineer in civic tech, Jenna advises public sector clients on data & analytics engineering best practices, grounding her work in information science principles and a data librarian’s perspective. As a Senior Analytics Engineer with Ratio PBC, she builds data systems that support public health initiatives and Health & Human Services organizations. She has previously worked for Analytics8 as a Senior Data Management Consultant and the City of Boston Analytics Team as a Data Engineer. Jenna has expertise in dbt, Python, data modeling, database & data warehouse design, ETL pipelines & orchestration, CI/CD, and data testing. She holds a Master’s in Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BA in Journalism & Political Science from UNC Chapel Hill, and lives in Asheville, NC, with her rescue pup, Bella.

Stamati is the Co-founder and CTO of Enlaye, the AI-native Risk Lifecycle Management™ platform for the build world. He and his team help all actors in the built environment – contractors, owners, and developers – build better together. As CTO, he leads the development of Enlaye’s Risk AI, designed to identify, assess, compare, and manage risk at all stages of the project lifecycle. Before launching his venture, Stamati received a PhD in computational neuroscience from Boston University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focused on bridging the gap between human and artificial intelligence, with a special emphasis on learning, memory, and decision-making. Based out of the Harvard Innovation Labs in Boston, Stamati is passionate about applying AI to solve real-world problems and mentoring the next generation of tech innovators. He is also an avid runner and foodie.

Jack is a longtime veteran of the software industry in the Boston area and has served in both technical and senior management roles at four successful startups. He’s currently a Principal Scientist at Adobe, primarily focused on architecture for large-scale software-as-a-service products. Jack is a three-time graduate of Boston University with a BS/MS in Computer Science and an MBA. He currently resides in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.

Russ is a leading expert in artificial intelligence and smart city technology, specializing in data-driven urban governance solutions. As Founder and CEO of ArtifexAI, he designed advanced AI systems that transform fragmented municipal data into unified intelligence platforms for smarter city management and infrastructure planning. A physics honors graduate from Boston University with advanced AI certification from MIT, he served as an expert witness in U.S. Federal Courts and the State of California on matters of artificial intelligence and data science. He regularly advises state and federal policymakers on AI implementation and has been featured in Forbes for his contributions to smart city innovation. He is a Distinguished Member of the American Society for AI and a member of Lives Amplified.

Carlton (he/him) is an associate professor of clinical law at Cornell Law School. He is a movement lawyer and organizer dedicated to building and supporting liberation struggles, and has practiced criminal and civil rights law in Massachusetts for many years. He began his legal career as a criminal attorney with the Roxbury Defenders and later served as a racial justice attorney with a national civil liberties non-profit. A member of the National Lawyers Guild and former chair of its Massachusetts board, Carlton was part of the legal defense for the Occupy Boston movement and served on the working group that organized the inaugural Law for Black Lives convening. He later served as executive director of the Water Protector Legal Collective. He is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, the Pre-Law Summer Institute for Native Americans, and the University of Wisconsin Law School.