Virginia Ruesterholz to serve as Chair of SSE Advisory Board

HOBOKEN, N.J. -- The School of Systems and Enterprises (SSE) at Stevens Institute of Technology is pleased to announce that Verizon Telecom president and Stevens alumna, Virginia P. Ruesterholz will serve as the new Chair of the SSE Advisory Board, effective May 7. Ruesterholz is currently a member of the Board of Trustees at Stevens.

“It is an honor to have Virginia Ruesterholz as the incoming Chair of the SSE Advisory Board. Her experience and leadership will be a significant asset to the school and Institute leadership. Her guidance will be particularly important to SSE as we gear up to extend systems thinking and engineering to the IT, Financial, and Telecommunications services spaces,” said Dr. Dinesh Verma, Dean of the School of Systems and Enterprises.

Ruesterholz will replace Mark Schaeffer, Director of Systems and Software Engineering (Ret.), Office of the Secretary of Defense, who has served as the Board Chair for three years. During Schaeffer’s tenure as Chairman he assisted in the successful transition of the Systems Engineering and Engineering Management Department to what is now the new School of Systems and Enterprises. Schaeffer's more than 30 years of experience within the Navy and Defense Systems provided critical leadership in facilitating industry and government linkages that make the Systems Engineering graduate program the largest in the country.

Ruesterholz leads Verizon Telecom which is rolling out the most comprehensive, high speed fiber-optic technology in the country. FiOS provides residential and small-business customers with advanced and innovative broadband and entertainment services that have earned the company numerous citations and awards, including being named #4 on the BusinessWeek 50.

She graduated from Stevens with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering in 1983, and holds a master’s degree in Telecommunications Management from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.

Ruesterholz has won multiple awards for her industry leadership, including Crain's New York Business "40 under 40" award, and the New York Women's Agenda "Rising Star Award."

“Virginia Ruesterholz, a prominent executive in the global telecommunications industry and leader on the Stevens Board of Trustees, brings great insight into the planning and strategy of the SSE,” said Stevens’ President, Harold J. Raveche.

Provost and University Vice President George P. Korfiatis said, “I am thrilled that Virginia has accepted to serve as the Chair of the SSE advisory Board. Her expertise in enterprise level systems and her proven leadership will serve the school well at a time of transformational growth.”

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,040 undergraduate and 3,085 graduate students, and a worldwide online enrollment of 2,250, with a full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty of 140 and more than 200 full-time special faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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