Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Advisory Council

Dr. Mo Faisal is currently the CEO of Movellus, a semiconductor company providing critical infrastructure for complex chips in the age of AI. Dr. Faisal founded Movellus based on his doctoral research at the University of Michigan in 2014.

Prior to founding Movellus, Dr. Faisal held positions at semiconductor companies such as Intel, Freescale, and PMC Sierra. Faisal received his B.S. from the University of Waterloo, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and holds over ten patents. Dr. Faisal was named a “Top 20 Entrepreneur” by the Zell Lurie Institute. He is also the 2023 recipient of the ECE Rising Star Alumni award.

Cyrus Hadavi is currently CEO of Adexa, a leading global supply chain planning company, he founded in 1994. Prior to Adexa he was one of the original team members at i2 technologies, now part of JDA. Before joining i2, as a research scientist at Siemens R&D Labs in Princeton NJ, he was amongst the first pioneers of application of Artificial Intelligence to planning problems. His innovative research resulted in implementation of the first generation of planning solutions in a number of Siemens facilities in Europe. Hadavi has shared his expertise to improve the supply chain of many Fortune 1000 companies, including Black & Decker, Solectron, Northrop-Grumman, Philips, and Toshiba. Hadavi has served as an Adjunct Professor of Operations Management at Columbia University, and performed joint research with a number of faculty members at Columbia University, Wharton School of Management, Clemson University and Max Planck institute in Germany. In addition to patents, he has numerous publications in the area of decision sciences and supply chain planning. Hadavi was the recipient of Deloitte and Touche Entrepreneur of the Year as well as D&T’s top 5 fastest growing companies in California. He has served on the board of a number of high tech companies in addition to the Board of Governors of Willows Community School and AYSO Region 69.

Rashaunda M. Henderson is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Dallas, School of Engineering and Computer Science. She served as Interim co-Department Head from May 16, 2022 to June 1, 2023. Prior to joining UT Dallas in 2007 she was a research and development device engineer at Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., (now NXP Semiconductors) in Tempe AZ, working in the microwave and mixed-signal technology labs for wireless embedded systems.  Dr. Henderson is co-founder of the High Frequency Circuits and Systems Laboratory, which facilitates millimeter-wave design and development of components, circuits and integrated packages and antennas for wireless systems. She is a Senior Member of the IEEE and served as the 2022 President of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S). She is a member of the Department of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (DAF SAB).

John MacIlwaine is the CEO and co-founder of Highnote, an embedded finance company setting the new standard for modern card platform management through differentiated payment experiences. John has over two decades of experience leading in technical and management roles at global financial companies. Prior to founding Highnote, he served as General Manager of Braintree, a leading global payments platform. During his tenure, John was instrumental in driving the company’s global growth and expansion. Before joining Braintree, MacIlwaine served as the Chief Technology Officer of Lending Club, a pioneering online lending platform that connects borrowers with investors. In his role, John laid the groundwork to establish the company’s technical foundation while driving innovation across the organization. Throughout his career, John has been committed to helping businesses move faster and
innovate more through differentiated payment experiences. He believes that payments are a critical touchpoint in the customer journey and that businesses must deliver seamless, personalized experiences to stand out in today’s competitive landscape. Outside of Highnote, John is a self-taught piano player and an avid fan of the artist Peter Gabriel. He’s a collector of old Apple computers and roots for all teams and groups from his alma mater, the University of Michigan. He has four children and resides in San Francisco, California, with his family.

Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah is Chief Financial Officer at Uber.

He was previously Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Analog Devices (ADI). At ADI, he set financial strategy and oversaw the company’s global finance organization, with responsibility for financial management, planning, controls, and reporting.

Prior to joining ADI, Prashanth was Chief Financial Officer of WABCO Holdings Inc., a global supplier of commercial vehicle technologies. He previously served as Division CFO and in other financial leadership roles at Applied Materials, Visa, and United Technologies.

Prashanth was recognized by Institutional Investor magazine as a Top CFO in Semiconductors in 2020, 2021 and 2022 by equity research analysts. He also is a member of CNBC’s Global CFO Council.

Prashanth is a member of the board of directors of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, where he serves on the audit committee and committee on corporate responsibility and compliance. He also serves on the board of advisors and on the finance committee for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and is a member of the advisory board for the School of Engineering, Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Prashanth holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and an M.B.A. from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University.

Shirin Mangold is the VP of IT Service Delivery and Facilities at Deltek, a global software and information solutions provider.  She leads an organization responsible for delivering IT support to 4200 employees worldwide, ensuring the availability of internal and customer-facing systems, and managing facilities and real estate for 14 offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

As a student at Michigan Engineering, Ms. Mangold served on the Honor Council, was an active member of the Society of Women Engineers, and worked as a software developer in the Co-Op program. After graduating with her Computer Engineering degree from Michigan in ’93, Ms. Mangold worked as a Software Engineer at IBM and Booz Allen, before making the decision to pursue an MBA.  After completing her MBA at the University of Virginia’s Darden School, she worked in Management Consulting at Booz Allen and as a senior IT leader for AOL.

Ms. Mangold is an advocate for girls and women interested in studying and working in technology fields and has volunteered her time for organizations such as Year Up, public and private schools, and (her favorite), Michigan Engineering.

Dr. Isaac Porche is mission area executive for National Security Analysis at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, guiding the mission area as it combines innovative technical knowledge and operational analysis to create emerging capability solutions to national security challenges.

He was previously deputy director and head of the Communications, Information, and Navigation Office at the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State. He spent two decades at the RAND Corporation as a senior engineer and then as the first director of the Acquisition and Development program in RAND’s Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center. He also served as associate director of the RAND Arroyo Center’s Forces and Logistics Program.

He has led research projects for the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Joint Staff, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. At the Institute of Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Porche serves as an adjunct instructor, where he teaches a graduate class titled “Policy and Technology of Cyberwar.” 

He has authored numerous RAND publications, peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. He is also a frequent contributor of op-eds and commentary for news outlets on military and science topics and has been quoted in other media outlets including National Public Radio, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of the book Cyberwarfare: An Introduction to Information-Age Conflict (Artech House, 2019).

Leon Pryor is a Detroit-based technology professional. After graduating from Michigan, Leon joined Microsoft, where he helped launch the Xbox and Xbox 360 game consoles and dozens of games from Electronic Arts, Microsoft Game Studios, Disney, and Lucasarts. Leon is currently a Senior Video Game Producer for META’s(Facebook) Oculus Studios group, building Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Reality software.

Outside work, Leon is a passionate advocate for STEM enrichment in Detroit, Michigan, where he co-founded the Motor City Alliance. This non-profit organization supports over 100 robotics teams in Detroit in after-school programs, summer camps, and FIRST Robotics competitions. Leon is also the coach of two FIRST Robotics teams: FIRST Robotics Challenge team 8280 K9.0 Robotics from the School at Marygrove and FIRST Tech Challenge team 14010 TechnoPhoenix from the Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies school. Team TechnoPhoenix recently made history as the first Detroit Public school to qualify for the World Championships. Additionally, Leon was recognized as the Michigan State FIRST Robotics Coach of the Year and was runner-up for the award at the World Championships in Houston, TX. 

Dr. Mitch Rohde is the CEO and co-founder of Quantum Signal AI (QSAI), an advanced math-based engineering R&D company headquartered in Saline, Michigan.  Under his leadership QSAI has successfully built and delivered real-world solutions leveraging intelligent algorithms for almost a quarter century, for customers including the US Department of Defense, Secret Service, Department of State, Homeland Security, Raytheon, Sony, Whirlpool, Amway, and many more. QSAI tech and products have been used worldwide, including significant contributions in forensics, autonomous vehicle modeling and simulation, and teleoperation technology.  In 2019 QSAI was acquired by Ford Motor Company, and Dr. Rohde continues to lead the organization with a new focus on building the future of transportation. He has specific engineering expertise in signal and image processing, mobile robotics, circuit design, and modeling and simulation. He also is an avid collector and restorer of arcade games, with a unique collection spanning eighty years of gaming history. Dr. Rohde is member of Sigma Xi, AUVSI, IEEE, SAE, HKN, and TBP. 

Navin Shenoy is the former executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group at Intel Corporation. He led the worldwide organization that develops the company’s data center platforms, a business that spans servers, networks and storage across all customer segments. 

Previously, Shenoy served as general manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group. During his tenure in that position, he had responsibility for profit and loss, business strategy and product development across notebooks, desktops, tablets, 2 in 1 devices and home gateways. Earlier in his Intel career, Shenoy was general manager for Intel Asia Pacific, where he was responsible for all sales, marketing and enabling of Intel products in the region. He also has held leadership roles at Intel.

Amit Singhi is the Chief  Financial Officer for Humanetics, a hi-tech global industrial technology group that engineers extraordinary safety, digital and sensor solutions for critical environments to put humans at the heart of industrial design. Previously,  he was CFO and COO for the Piston Group, a tier-one automotive supplier.

From 2015 to 2017, Amit was the Chief Financial Officer at FLIR Systems, leading all Finance and I.T. functions. From 1994-2015, he worked at Ford Motor Company, where  he held financial management positions of increasing responsibility in a wide range of operating areas. He was the Chief Financial Officer of Ford South America, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from 2012 to 2015. 

Prior to joining Ford, Mr. Singhi was an engineer at General Motors R&D Center from 1989 to 1994, where he held several engineering & operational roles involved with development of advanced navigation systems, product planning, and manufacturing consulting.

Bob is the co-founder and managing director of eLab Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm with a primary focus on artificial intelligence with offices in Silicon Valley and Ann Arbor. Prior to founding eLab, Bob was a co-founder of TIBCO Software, a global leader in enterprise business intelligence and infrastructure software. He began his career in New York City with global law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where he represented several of the world’s leading technology and media companies.

Bob has been active with The University of Michigan as a member of the advisory board of the Center for Entrepreneurship, the chair of the Alumni Association, and a member of the President’s West Coast Advisory Council. He holds an MS in Computer, Information and Control Systems and a JD from The University of Michigan.

Sal Trupiano has over 30 years of experience developing embedded software that has shipped in tens of millions of products in the automotive, industrial and medical markets. In 2012, Sal established the U.S. engineering operation of QNX, which specializes in embedded real-time operating systems and virtualization software. Prior to his tenure at QNX, Sal was employed by General Motors, where he led the development of the in-vehicle component of the Over-the-Air software update feature, which won the GM “Boss” Kettering Award, which is GM’s top award for technical innovation.

Sal volunteers for several organizations, including U of M ECE, for which he reviews resumes and conducts mock interviews of students in preparation for their participation in the Fall and Winter career fairs. Since 2014, Sal has been a mentor in the FIRST Robotics program. In 2022, Sal was a Michigan finalist for the FIRST Robotics Woodie Flowers award, which recognizes mentors that inspire and empower students using excellent communication skills.

Dawson Yee is the former System Engineer – Azure Hardware, Quantum Computing at Microsoft. Prior to this position, he was Hardware System Engineer & Architect for Hololens. From 2009-2013, he was the Hardware Systems Architect and Engineer for both Xbox 360 Kinect and Xbox One Kinect. The first Kinect for Xbox 360 became the best-selling product in consumer electronics history. He joined Microsoft in 1998, working on projects such as Microsoft Surface (aka Interactive Table) before becoming Director of Devices for Microsoft’s Unified Communications Group, and joined the Xbox team in 2008.  Prior to joining Microsoft, he was at Intel for 10 years working on Mobile systems, Xeon processor, Intel Architecture Labs, Server systems, Desktop systems. He started at Intel as the motherboard design engineer for an 80386SX-16 MHz system. Yee is author of more than 80 granted and pending patents.

Linda Zhang, is responsible for leading the team delivering Ford’s first ever all-electric F-150 pickup. Zhang assumed this role in September 2018 when development began.

Zhang, who has been with Ford for nearly 25 years, joined the company after graduating with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and moving into the Ford College Graduate program. From there, she worked in manufacturing, product development, finance and corporate strategy, gathering business fundamentals that would serve her well as she worked on programs like Ford Explorer, Escape, Kuga and F-150. The all-electric F-150 program, she said, has been particularly fulfilling – because of her background in electrification and the truck’s prominent position in the Ford portfolio.

Linda Zhang was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine representing the team electrifying the world’s most popular truck in November 2021.

Zhang, 44, also has an MBA from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, she enjoys sports, travel and spending time with her family.