Dr. Stephen E. Cross is the executive vice president for research of the Georgia Institute of Technology, one of America’s top research universities, which occupies 400 acres in the heart of the city of Atlanta and also has a base in Ireland.

Georgia Tech Ireland was officially opened in 2006 at the IDA Business and Technology Park, Athlone. Established by Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the applied research and real-world problem-solving arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology, it was GTRI’s first applied research facility outside the U.S.

Stephen, who holds faculty appointments as a professor in industrial and systems engineering and as an adjunct professor in the College of Computing and the College of Management, is one of the founders of Georgia Tech Ireland and has spent considerable time there.

He served on the advisory board at Queen’s University Belfast, as a consultant to Science Foundation Ireland, and has worked closely with IDA Ireland. He was recently asked to be a member of the advisory board of the Atlantic Corridor in Tullamore, County Offaly.

A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, where he was named a distinguished alumnus in 2002, Stephen received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He served as director and CEO of the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburgh, PA, prior to joining Georgia Tech, and has published extensively on artificial intelligence and technology transition. In addition, he has led studies and organized workshops for senior industry and government leaders on topics spanning innovation, adaptable organizations, and systems engineering.

Stephen and his wife Sue have two grown children and two grandchildren.