Advisory Council for Physics Department
Scott Abel
Founder & CEO, Umuse; With more than 30 years in the technology industry, Scott is a serial entrepreneur who has started four companies. As founder of these companies he’s raised more than $200M in venture capital, employed more than 1,000 people and generated a combined revenue of in excess of half a billion dollars. His latest venture, Umuse is on a mission to tame the communication chaos in the workplace. Prior to Umuse, Scott was the Founder & CEO of Spiceworks - the world’s largest social network for IT Professionals. Scott holds a BS in Physics from UT Austin and is an avid martial artist who holds black belts in several different styles of martial arts.
Adam Drobot
UT-Austin alumnus; B.A. in Engineering and Applied Physics from Cornell University; Ph.D in Physics from UT-Austin with a specialization in plasma physics. Adam is currently an independent investor, consultant, and Chairman of the Board of OpenTechWorks, Inc. He previously served as Managing Director of 2M Companies as Chief Technology Officer and President of Advanced Techology Solutions at Telcordia Techologies. He also managed the Advanced Technology Group and was Senior Vice President for Science and Technology at SAIC. He is currently on the Board of the Telecommunications Industry Assn and a member of the FCC Technical Advisory Council. Adam's special interests are multidisciplinary computational-based tools to support complex products.
Elizabeth J. Keig
UT-Austin alumna, B.A. in computer sciences and J.D. from UT Law School. Member of the College of Natural Sciences Advisory Council. Deputy General Counsel for Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc.
Jeff Kodosky
UT-Austin alumnus, physics/computer sciences. Member of the College of Natural Sciences Advisory Council. Major donor to the Physics Department and the College. Co-founder of National Instruments.
Brian Kushner
PhD in Applied Physics, Cornell University. Member of the College of Natural Sciences Advisory Council. Senior Managing Director of FIT Consulting.
Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz
UT-Austin alumna; BA in French/Russian; post-graduate studies: Architecture/Geography. Initiated philantrhopic programs in education, youth employment and low-income housing in Galveston. Advisory Board member of the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A & M, and the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, Austin.
Cas Milner
PhD, Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, 1985. Planned, built, and conducted numerous experiments at the Superconducting Super Collider (SSCL), Fermilab, Brookhaven Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). His most recent activity was devising and testing a means to non-invasively measure the location of melted fuel in the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors, using cosmic ray muons. Adjunct Professor of Physics at SMU.
Dan Riley
UT-Austin alumnus, law degree; member of the College of Sciences Natural Sciences Advisory Council; retired Senior Partner in the Washington office of a prominent national law firm.
Rick Sivan
UT-Austin alumnus with a B.S. in Physics and a Ph.D in solid state Physics. Rick has served as VP of Research & Development and as Executive Director of IC Technology at International Rectifier, a world leader in power management technology. He has also served as Director of Technology at ATDF (Sematech subsidiary) and has held several top-level positions at Motorola both in Austin, TX and in Herzelia, Israel. He is interested in community service, has served on the Board of Directors of SafePlace in Austin and on the Departmental Visiting Committees for the Dept of Physics and ECE.
Suzanne Stout
UT-Austin alumna, Physics. MBA, Ph.D in Business. Former professor; retired executive from Cisco Systems. Current management consultant and angel investor.
