Educause Annual Meeting Recap and New Steering Committee Members

Gautam Saha is the Manager of Educational Technology and Instructional Design at Georgetown University in Qatar. He holds graduate degrees in Chemistry and Instructional Technology and professional certifications in Learning Management Systems and Customer Relationship Management software. Formerly, Gautam was the Instructional Designer at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. At Georgia Tech he developed new courses, consulted with faculty on teaching and learning pedagogy, implemented new enterprise learning technology and was a key member of the team to launch Georgia Tech’s first innovative graduate online Computer Science degree program. Gautam’s career has spanned higher education, K-12, software and telecommunications in private sector/Fortune 100, banking, aviation, healthcare, Federal and State agencies. His diverse background and experience enables him to bridge, translate and envision complex technology features and functions to mapping effective applications to move the needle towards innovation based on scholarly research-based practices while integrating teaching and learning with effective educational technology. Authentic and ethical leadership, empathy, inclusive communication, and accountability with consensus building are values that guides him in his professional life.

Dr. Vartouhi Asherian has been at the College of Southern Nevada for over 20 years serving as the Interactive Learning Center Manager, where she managed the computer labs and computer classrooms to meet the needs of students and faculty overseeing severs and software requests. From there she moved to the eLearning office where she assists faculty with their online courses. Additionally, she teaches Education classes, Biostatistics for Epidemiology, as well as Armenian Language classes on a part time basis. Asherian has a Bachelors in Biology, Masters in Education Administration, Masters in Education Curriculum and Instruction, and a Doctorate in Instructional Design and Distance Education.

Marcia Ham’s area of expertise lies in the policy and ethics realm of student data analytics in higher education. She is a PhD candidate in education policy dissertating on, "Facing the Big Data Deluge: Ethical Implications for Student Data Analytics in Higher Education." Ham is the Learning Analytics Consultant in the Office of Distance Education and eLearning at The Ohio State University where she coordinates efforts among various offices and units around the university using student data to advance research and improve the learning experiences of our students.

The SSA CG chairs and steering committee look forward to serving you, the community, over the coming year! We also hope you can join us for our final webinar of the year on November 19th, “Data-driven Decision Making in Higher Education” presented by Dr. Cecilia Earls from Cornell University. For more information and to register, please go here. If you cannot join us live, please register to receive the link following the presentation or check our resource hub.