Lenore Blum, Founding Director of Project Olympus, Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

Lenore Blum (PhD, MIT) is Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon and Founding Director of Project Olympus. Project Olympus is a good example of her determination to make a real difference in the academic community and the world beyond. Olympus has two main aims: to bridge the gap between cutting-edge university research/innovation and economy-promoting commercialization for the benefit of our communities and to creating a climate, culture and community to enable talent and ideas to grow in the region... Read full bio

Kit Needham

Entrepreneur in Residence

Email: kit@cs.cmu.edu

Kit is Entrepreneur in Residence at Project Olympus. She provides students start-up advice, business strategy planning, connections to industry experts, advisors and the business community. She is a technical advisor to BlueTree Allied Angels and serves on the Screening Committee. She is an Advisory Board member of Chatham University's Center for Women's Entrepreneurship and teaches in their MBA program. She also provides consulting services to promote economic growth to Chambers of Commerce, individual entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations.

Andrea Ponce

Research Scholar

Email: aponce@cs.cmu.edu

Andrea is Project Olympus Entrepreneurship Research Scholar. Her research focuses on ways to encourage innovation to accelerate the commercialization of research and ideas at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining Olympus, Andrea worked for the Carnegie Mellon University Advancement Division where she created the Andrew Carnegie Society Leaders Program to grow leadership annual giving at CMU. Andrea graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a major in Economics and a minor in Political Science and is the recipient of a full scholarship and the Leadership and Service Award.

Connect with Andrea:  Linkedin | Twitter

Cleah Schlueter

Project Coordinator

Email: cleah@cs.cmu.edu

Cleah coordinates events and special projects for Project Olympus. She has worked in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon since 1987 where she is also Project Coordinator for a number of other endeavors, including the ALICE Project. She joined Project Olympus at inception in 2007.