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Bernard C. Soriano is a Deputy Director for the California Department of Motor Vehicles and is in charge of the department’s autonomous vehicles program. He has over 30 years of engineering and management experience in the private and public sector. He previously held engineering and management positions at Hughes Space and Communications, where he designed attitude control systems for commercial and military satellites and was involved in their launch missions. He was also the Assistant Technical Director at the USGA Research and Test Center in New Jersey. In the public sector, Bernard was the Chief Information Officer for the Office of the Secretary of State and was the information technology task force leader on Governor Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review.

Bernard was also a member of the part-time faculty at the California State University, Sacramento, where he taught courses in the College of Engineering and the College of Business Administration.

Bernard holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from U.C. Irvine, a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Southern California, and a B.S. in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from U.C. Davis. He also holds an M.B.A. from California State University, Sacramento. He was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve and has numerous publications and patents. His honors and achievements include selection as a finalist in the NASA astronaut program.

Bhavin brings over a decade of experience in the measurement and control industry. He joined NI in 2007 after completing his Masters in Microelectronics and Graduate Diploma in Electronics at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia, following a Bachelor of Science (Electronics and Telecommunications) at the University of Mumbai, India.

Bhavin developed his technical and business expertise across a diverse range of industries including transportation, advanced research, mining, and energy, in applications involving embedded systems, , industrial automation & control, smart machines, and asset monitoring. As an NI District Sales Manager, Bhavin works with engineers and engineering management on improving their organization’s ROI by developing customized solutions for their unique needs that harness the power of open platforms and off-the-shelf technologies. He has delivered technical papers at conferences including the Annual Condition Monitoring and Lubrication Forum, Australasian Congress on Applied Mechanics, the Remote Monitoring and Control Technologies Conference, Annual NI Technical Symposium conference series. During his time in Australia, Bhavin was an active member of Engineers Australia, and regularly conducted seminars and training courses focused on helping engineers and scientists increase their proficiency with NI platforms.

Bill Williams is the Commercial Sales Director at Proterra, Inc. For the last 6 years, has been a leader in the EV infrastructure, working on segments such as airports, workplace and universities. Bill is a founding member and Chairman of the San Joaquin Valley Electric Vehicle Partnership, as well as on the board of Project Clean Air. Since 1995, Bill has been helping to propel the electric transportation movement in the United States, as an EV Industry Marketing and Sales Executive. As one of the first dealers in the US to sell neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs), Bill's career has focused on the Alternative Fuel Transportation industry from the beginning. For the past twenty years he has held executive positions such as Regional Vice President of EVI and Vice President of Sales in North America for ZENN Motor Company. As CEO of his own consulting company Green Motion he has partnered with EV Manufactures, Solar, Heavy-duty Hybrid Drive Technology, and battery companies. His continued focus on the fleet side of the industry has always been where he believes the commercialization of new technologies should be. He was responsible for introducing the Airport parking industry to electric shuttle busses. Bill has presented at the Department of Energy, Department of Transportation as well as the Pentagon, EPRI, and several national EV events. He has been very involved with the VW Settlement proposals and the Smart City Challenge from its inception. Bill has been active with EDTA, NAFA, GSA, Fed Fleet & Clean Cities Coalitions throughout the US for many years. Bill continues to be an active spokesperson for the EV movement.

David Cook works as environmental engineer for the US Navy in Port Hueneme, California. An organizational motto at NAVFAC EXWC where David works, is “Tomorrow’s Solutions Today”.

David is Team Lead for the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Program at NAVFAC EXWC, which involves fielding of emerging transportation technologies with the goal of reducing petroleum use, and improving National Energy Security.

When David is not at work he is gardening, running, or spending time with his daughters who are an aspiring screen writer and a criminal forensics investigator.

James joined BYD Motors, Inc. in 2013 as the first U.S. Fleet Sales Manager covering the western U.S and Canada. As BYD continued to grow its sales team, James took on a more focused role and currently serves as the Southern California Regional Sales Manager. Some of his customers include Long Beach Transit, LADOT , Gardena Municipal Bus Lines, Anaheim Resort Transportation, Denver RTD, UCLA, Catalina Island Company and AVTA (the first public transit agency in America to convert its entire fleet to battery electric). Prior to joining BYD James spent 12 years designing and selling data management and disaster recovery technology solutions to private and public sectors. He received a Marketing degree and a German minor degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. James resides in Long Beach with his wife and 3 young sons.

Jayathi Y. Murthy became the seventh dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science on January 1, 2016.

Before joining UCLA Engineering, Murthy was chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and held the Ernest Cockrell Jr. Memorial Chair in Engineering. Consistently ranked as one of the top mechanical engineering departments in the country, the department has 66 faculty and approximately 1,500 students.

From 2008 to 2014, Murthy served as the director of the Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems (PRISM), a $21 million center of excellence supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

Prior to joining the University of Texas at Austin, Murthy was the Robert V. Adams Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University from 2008 to 2011. Before joining Purdue, she was a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

From 1988 to 1998, Murthy worked at New Hampshire-based Fluent, Inc., a developer and vendor of the world’s most widely used computational fluid dynamics software. She led the development of algorithms and software that still form the core the company’s products.

Murthy began her career at Arizona State University, where she was an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering from 1984 to 1988.

Her research interests include nanoscale heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, and simulations of fluid flow and heat transfer for industrial applications. Her recent research has addressed sub-micron thermal transport, multiscale multiphysics simulations and uncertainty quantifications.

Murthy received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota, an M.S. from Washington State University and a B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. She is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the author of more than 280 technical publications. She serves on the editorial boards of Numerical Heat Transfer and the International Journal of Thermal Sciences. She is an editor of the second edition of the Handbook of Numerical Heat Transfer.

John Bryan has more than 20 years of energy, utility, technology, and automotive manufacturing experience. He is currently the VP of Commercial Applications for EPC Power, a manufacturer of grid forming bi-directional inverters for solar, vehicle, and alternative fueled generators in Poway, CA, a suburb of San Diego. John has run sales and marketing organizations for energy storage companies for stationary systems at CODA Energy and mobile applications at Fleet Energy Company. Previously, John was the Program Manager at Xcel Energy for the mid-west utility’s R&D department, where he was responsible for overseeing their vehicle-to-grid electric vehicle projects, the $100M SmartGridCity project in Boulder, CO, and the 1 MW/7.2 MWh wind integrated battery energy storage project. He earned a MBA in finance from the University of Missouri and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University. John is a technophile and strongly believes that by leveraging technology that the human mind can solve the persistent, complex, and difficult problems that are plaguing mankind.

The Honorable John A. Mirisch was elected to the Beverly Hills City Council in 2009 and reelected in 2013 and 2017. He has served two terms as mayor.

Councilmember Mirisch is a longtime supporter of high-tech solutions to municipal issues. A cornerstone of his current term as mayor is to install high-speed fiber optic cable throughout the City, providing high quality online access to every resident and business. He spearheaded a recent resolution passed by the City Council to develop a fleet of driverless municipal shuttles. These autonomous vehicles would increase mobility for elderly and handicapped residents in addition to solving the first-and last-mile issue for future Purple Line subway stops in Beverly Hills. Councilmember Mirisch also was a leader in the City’s drive to introduce Automated License Plate Reader technology and expand the use of security cameras.

A fourth generation Beverly Hills resident, Councilmember Mirisch lived abroad for a number of years, working as a film executive in marketing and distribution, before returning to his hometown. 

Most recently Mr. Mirisch worked as an executive at Paramount Pictures, one of the world’s leading film companies, where he ran the International theatrical sales department. Prior to that, he oversaw international distribution for IMAX, the world’s most well-known premium movie-going experience. In addition, he worked with United International Pictures as the Managing Director of its Swedish and Austrian offices. While in Europe, he was selected to serve on the boards of the Austrian and Swedish Film Distributors' Associations, as well as the Swedish Academy Awards Selection Committee.

Mr. Mirisch, a dual Swedish-American citizen, is the first Swedish national to serve as mayor of Beverly Hills.

I am on the faculty at UCLA as Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department, with a joint appointment as Professor in the Computer Science Department. Before joining UCLA in 1997, I worked for about four and a half years at the Networked Computing Research Department at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ (it was called AT&T Bell Labs when I had joined, but perennial reorganizations had transformed it into Lucent Technologies - Bell Labs Innovations by the time I left!). My interests in mobile and wireless systems are largely because of my work at Bell Labs where my group built one of the first wireless ATM system. Prior to that, I did my graduate work in the EECS Department at U. C. Berkeley under Bob Brodersen in the general area of CAD tools for embedded DSP VLSI and system design. My M.S. project (1988) was on CMOS bit-slice datapath compilation as part of the Lager silicon compiler for DSP VLSI, while my Ph.D. dissertation (1992) was on hardware-software rapid prototyping and co-design at the board level for embedded DSP and control applications. Going even further back in time, I received my B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Kanpur in India in 1985, and did my prior schooling at the Colvin Taluqdars' College in Lucknow, India - the city where I grew up. I have served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing and the ACM Mobile Computing and Communications Review, and as Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Sensor NetworksACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking, and the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. Currently I serve as the Steering Committee Chair of the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

Dr. Mario Gerla is a Professor in Computer Science at UCLA. During his Ph.D. program at UCLA he worked on early ARPANET protocols under Prof. Leonard Kleinrock. Since joining the UCLA Faculty in 1976, he has contributed to several network designs including wireless (ODMRP and CODECast) and Internet transport (TCP Westwood). He has lead the ONR MINUTEMAN project (2001-2006), designing the next generation scalable airborne Internet. He has developed at UCLA a Vehicular Testbed for safe navigation and intelligent transport. He was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2002 and was recently recognized with the MILCOM Award (2011), the IEEE Ad Hoc and Sensor Network Award (2011) and the Sigmobile Life Achievement Award (2015)

Founder of the Advanced Sustainability Institute, dedicated to thought leadership, demonstration, and entrepreneurship in new energy and cleantech, Mr. Boehm is an entrepreneur, consultant and educator in the sustainability space. He serves as Executive Director for the Advanced Transportation Center, Industry Liaison for UCLA's Smartgrid Energy Research Center, and consultant to its EVSE spin off MOEV, and has assisted AeroVironment, Trexa, LADWP, GenOn, LAANE, SaveMe, Sempra and Toyota in their new energy and Electric Vehicle endeavors. He also served as CEO of Solar Energy Development International - an early developer of solar concentrator technology. Mr. Boehm is the Executive Director of the E4 Advanced Transportation Center, coordinating regional efforts toward developing a cleantech industry sector. Educated at Northwestern University and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Michael has taught sustainability in programs at Darden School of Business, UCLA, and the University of Santa Clara. Mr. Boehm serves as board member and chairman of the German American Business Association, Southern California, CleanTech and Sustainability Industry Group, co-chair of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation E4-Mobility Alliance, and is an advisor to LA's Clean Tech incubator.

Recognizing that autonomous vehicle technology is likely to redefine mobility in cities, Los Angeles is embracing the opportunity to be a world leader in implementing and supporting this technology. Michael Lim is developing a business plan for the City of Los Angeles to address the increasingly important need for investment in autonomous vehicles and associated infrastructure.

Michael is an innovation professional with global infrastructure, finance and technology experience, including most recently as a co-founder and CEO of a technology venture addressing urban infrastructure challenges. Originally trained in urban planning, Michael started his career in infrastructure development for the United Nations in the Asia Pacific region. He was also an investment banker, most recently with Lazard Freres & Co, and advised technology companies and governments on strategy, capital raises and M&A transactions. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Paul Glenney is responsible for the deployment of EV Charging Infrastructure in North America for Faraday Future. Paul was most recently the director of new products and services for NRG EVgo and possesses over a dozen years of cleantech business experience with a focus on strategy, marketing & sales, product development, and the adoption of technology solutions. He has been part of two start-ups as well as a late stage company that later became a successful IPO.

Prior to this, Paul led the clean energy practice at AeroVironment, Inc., (AV) joining AV when they were a private company. During his tenure at AV, Paul was engaged in a myriad of technology solutions that included: renewable energy technologies such as wave, tidal and wind energy (Architectural Wind™), micro-grids, solar water pumping, energy efficiency and energy storage systems. He later helped launch AV’s EV Solutions business unit leading marketing and sales.

In 2009 Paul was honored by California State University Channel Islands as the Technologist of the Year, and was featured in Discovery Channel’s “Earth: The Sequel.” In 2008, his demonstration project, Architectural Wind, was highlighted in Sundance Channel’s “Big Ideas for a Small Planet;” celebrated by the Environmental Hall of Fame. Architectural Wind further received several international design awards including Red Dot International, ID and Seoul International Design.

Paul holds his MBA with a specialization in entrepreneurship from the Graziadio School at Pepperdine University. Paul lives in Santa Monica, CA, and has conducted business in over two-dozen countries.

Dr. Rajit Gadh is a Professor at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA, and the Founding Director of the *UCLA Smart Grid Energy Research Center* or *SMERC*. He is also Founder and Director of the *Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium* or *WINMEC*.

Dr. Gadh's research interests include Smart Grid Architectures, Smart wireless communications, sense and control for Demand Response, Micro Grids and Electric Vehicle Integration into the Grid, Mobile Multimedia, Wireless and RFID Middleware, RFID and Wireless sensors for Tracking Assets, RF-sensor-control interfaces,and Visualization. He has over 150 papers in journals, conferences and technical magazines, and, 3 patents granted.

He has a Doctorate degree from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a Masters from Cornell University and a Bachelor's degree from IIT Kanpur. He has taught as a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, has been an Assistant, Associate and Full Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and did his sabbatical as a visiting researcher at Stanford University for a year. He has won several awards from NSF (CAREER award, Research Initiation Award, NSF-Lucent Industry Ecology Award, GOAL-I award), SAE (Ralph Teetor award), IEEE (second best student-paper, WTS), ASME (Kodak Best Technical Paper award), AT&T (Industrial ecology fellow award), Engineering Education Foundation (Research Initiation Award), William Wong Fellowship award from University of Hong-Kong, etc., and other accolades in his career. He is on the Editorial board of ACM Computers in Entertainment Publication and the CAD Journal.

As the CCO and VP of Business Development at Bosch Building Grid Technologies, Sharmila Ravula leads Bosch’s efforts to bring to market new power distribution technology for the C&I sector. In this role, she leads the strategic marketing, sales and business development activities for the Americas. Sharmila is focused on developing the sales channels, partnerships and strategy development for the Bosch Building Grid Technology team in the US. Prior to joining the Building Grid Technologies group, she was responsible for developing the sales and commercialization efforts for Bosch Energy Storage Solutions based in Palo Alto, CA. She also led the strategy and business development efforts at Bosch Solar Energy North America. She was instrumental in developing financing (Bosch PPA), project development and sales operations for the Solar Energy team. Prior to moving into the renewable energy space, Sharmila worked on and led software research activities in wireless sensor networks at Bosch Research and Technology Center. Sharmila has an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and an M.S. in Operation research from the University of Delaware.

ASteve Pazol is GM, Wireless Charging for Qualcomm Incorporated, where he runs the IP licensing businesses for WiPower (wireless charging of phones, wearables and other consumer devices) and Halo (wireless electric vehicle charging). Most recently he was vice president and entrepreneur in residence at Qualcomm, where he looked after a variety of internal Qualcomm startups.

Prior to this, Steve was the president of nPhase, a Verizon Wireless / Qualcomm joint venture, where he directed all aspects of the company's business. nPhase provided a cloud- based machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless platform across a wide variety of market segments, including healthcare, manufacturing, utilities, transportation and consumer products. nPhase was successfully sold to Verizon Wireless in 2011.

A recognized thought leader and industry expert, Steve has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Chicago Innovation Award, was named one of the original 10 M2M Pioneers by M2M Magazine, and served as moderator of the first M2M web log—M2Mblog (www.M2Mblog.com). He has written numerous articles in technology journals, was on the Advisory Board of M2M Magazine, was the technical editor of the Unicenter Advisor magazine for more than 7 years as well as guest editor of Internet Security Advisor. He is also the technical editor and co-author of Unicenter TNG for Dummies. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Steve has also been a featured speaker and panel member at multiple Wharton School of Business, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and Northwestern Business School entrepreneurial classes.

Prior to running the nPhase joint venture, Steve was vice president and general manager for Qualcomm’s Global Smart Services group, the business unit that provided the basis for the nPhase joint venture. During his tenure at Qualcomm, Steve also served as vice president of sales and as the vice president of Worldwide OEM Channels.

Steve is a seasoned entrepreneur and CEO with a 20+ year track record of successful startups in technology and emerging markets, including M2M, enterprise software and wireless technologies. In 2003 Steve started the original nPhase in Chicago, and served as CEO until Qualcomm acquired nPhase in 2006.

In 2005, Steve founded Skychain LLC, a joint venture between nPhase and Air Products and Chemicals which focused on automated supply chain replenishment in the chemical industry. Steve was CEO of Skychain until 2006 when nPhase was acquired by Qualcomm.

Before founding nPhase, Steve spent 15 years providing IT consulting and systems implementation services as President of Professional Consulting Services (PCS) which he started in 1988. He also co-founded Mehta & Pazol Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd. in Pune, India in 1992. Prior to founding PCS, Steve worked for Burroughs Corporation and Unisys Corporation in their consulting groups in Detroit and Chicago. Steve is a mentor at Evonexus, a San Diego technology incubator and Connect, a technology innovation organization, has been advising startups and also represents Qualcomm’s investment in Macheen. Steve has been active with a number of civic organizations and is currently on the board of the San Diego chapter of the Arthritis Foundation. Steve has a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Steve began LA Metro since 1994 in a host of various positions and departments including: Labor Relations, ITS, Highways, and Operations. When not with LA Metro, he spent time at OCTA running the 91 Express Lanes, and the running the family sailboat building company.

In 2014 back at LA Metro Steve moved to Transit Capital and began developing specifications for a light rail vehicle overhaul, then in 2015 he was reassigned to the zero emission bus project with the directive to get the buses on the road and gather valuable data. From Steve has been working to bring electric vehicles to Los Angeles as a replacement vehicle to traditional CNG powered buses. In June and July of this year, Metro is on target to present contract recommendations to our board of directors for the first orders for 40’ ZEB and 60’ ZEB’s for deployment on the Metro Orange and Metro Silver Lines.

Steve has a BA degree in Marketing from Cal State Fullerton, and a MBA from Clemson University.

Dr. Tsu-Chin Tsao is Professor at the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Henry Samuelli School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of California Los Angeles. Dr. Tsao received B.S. in engineering from National Taiwan University (1981), and M.S. (1984) and Ph.D. (1988) in mechanical engineering from University of California Berkeley. Before joining UCLA as Professor in 1999 he was Assistant and Associate Professor at University Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Tsao served the UCLA Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department as Vice Chair 2002-05 and Chair 2011-16. He is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers. His current research interest includes control systems, mechatronics, and robotics. Recognitions of his research work include ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control Best Paper Award, ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division Outstanding Young Investigator Award, American Automatic Control Council Hugo S. Shuck Best Paper Award, International Symposium on Flexible Automation Best Paper Award, and International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Mechatronic Systems Award.

Veronica Siranosian, AICP, LEED GA is a senior project manager in the AECOM Ventures group, which focuses on integrating technology and innovation into the company's core business. Her areas of focus include future transportation, Smart Cities, and Internet of Things. She has experience managing and preparing feasibility studies, alternatives analyses, and environmental and planning studies for integrated transportation and land use projects across multiple modes (connected and autonomous vehicles, bus rapid transit, light rail, high-speed rail, streetcar, and hyperloop). Her current projects include developing a state-wide strategy for connected and autonomous vehicles, designing an autonomous bus pilot to test cold weather operations, and determining the feasibility of applying autonomous vehicle technologies to a streetcar system. With a background in transportation and land use planning, she brings over ten years of experience in the public and private sectors to the role. Prior to joining AECOM she worked at the County of Los Angeles Department of Regional Planning on long-range community plans. Veronica received her Master of Urban Planning degree from the New York University Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and her Bachelor of Arts in International Development and Political Science from UCLA.