Jonsson School Industrial Advisory Board
Next Meeting: Friday, November 13, 2009The Jonsson School Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) is a council of more than 60 representatives from nearly 40 companies and organizations who serve the school on a volunteer basis as advisers to its academic and research programs. Most are senior technical personnel or corporate officers from the local high-tech industry. Others are leaders of civic and trade organizations such as the Metroplex Technology Business Council, the City of Richardson and the Denison Development Alliance. The board is led by co-chairs Ken Dickerson, retired ARCO senior vice president, and Tom Hill, Hewlett-Packard (former EDS) fellow.
The IAB currently incorporates several standing committees focused on the following areas of research and education:
- Telecom engineering
- Human communication technology
- Analog circuits and systems
- Information assurance and cyber security
- Systems engineering and management
- Bioengineering
Each of the school’s academic departments and degree programs also maintains its own external advisory committee, and these individuals are also members of the greater IAB.
Recently the IAB members and their companies contributed an aggregate of $102,000 for the creation of a Jonsson School IAB Graduate Research Fellowship. This total will be matched fifty percent by the State of Texas under its Tier-One Research Initiative Program. The first fellowships will be awarded in fall 2010.
The mission statement and operating guidelines for the board are described in the official IAB Charter.
IAB Co-chairs
Ken Dickerson is retired Senior Vice President for External Affairs of Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO). He was named founding chair of the Jonsson School IAB in 2004 and currently shares that role with co-chair Tom Hill. He also chairs the Association of Engineering Advisory Boards of the state’s engineering colleges. In this role, he spearheaded efforts that led to the passing of House Bill 2978, which provides funding and other incentives to introduce pilot engineering programs in Texas high schools. This initiative resulted in the creation of UTD’s UTeach program, which each summer prepares a select group of local science and math teachers to introduce engineering concepts and projects into their schools’ curricula.
Mr. Dickerson also serves on President Daniel’s University Development Board and on the engineering advisory board of UT Austin. In addition, he is a member of the board of trustees for both the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles and the Center for American and International Law here in the Metroplex, as well as a senior associate for Sustainable Development Corporation in California. His extensive volunteer activities leave him little free time to enjoy his retirement.
Tom Hill is Director of the Fellows and Distinguished Engineering program at HP Enterprise Services (formerly EDS). He was named an EDS Fellow in 1991 and an HP Fellow (following the latter’s acquisition of EDS) in 2009. He has been a proactive member of the Jonsson School IAB since its inception in 2004, and was appointed co-chair in 2008. Among his key contributions to the school’s tier-one strategy has been his strong advocacy for creation of an interdisciplinary program in systems engineering, which is currently being developed in collaboration with the University's School of Management.
Mr. Hill also serves on the engineering advisory board of TCU, and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). He is also a volunteer mentor for the MBA program at UT Dallas, and has been a guest speaker for the Jonsson School’s student engineering societies. He holds both a BS and an MBA in information technology, he is the author of numerous articles and publications, and he holds nine patents.
