A top entertainment industry professional and advocate for CMU’s interdisciplinary synergy, Paula Wagner brings energy, confidence and commitment to her leadership role within the Tartan community.

Paula develops and produces film, theatre and television projects through her production company Chestnut Ridge Productions. Her producing credits include the films “Mission Impossible I, II and III,” “Vanilla Sky,” “The War of the Worlds” and “Marshall,” and the stage shows “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” “The Heiress,” “Grace” and the Tony Award-nominated “Mothers and Sons.” Paula is a member of AMPAS, PGA, Broadway League and an ambassador of ReFrame for Women In Film, an effort seeking gender equality in the media industry.

She serves as a Carnegie Mellon University Trustee and a member of the Executive Committee and College of Fine Arts Dean’s Council as well as a master class instructor. Paula values the ideas created when the colleges and schools within the university combine their expertise, as evidenced in her support for the Entertainment Technology Center.

Educator, composer, mentor and Tony and Grammy Award-nominated actor, Michael McElroy shines as a luminary on Broadway and as a leader committed to inclusion, diversity, belonging and equity in artistic and academic spaces. He founded the Broadway Inspirational Voices choir, a gospel ensemble that was recognized at the 2019 Tony Awards. An alumnus of CMU’s College of Fine Arts, Michael is the Director of Diversity Initiatives for the NYU Tisch Undergraduate Department of Drama, and is on the faculty of the NYU Tisch New Studio on Broadway, where he is head of vocal performance.

A prolific performer, Michael’s extensive resume of choral arrangements have been performed in Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and the Lincoln Center and, and he’s taken the stage around the world for noted roles in “Rent,” “Big River” and “Next to Normal.”

After growing up in Lisbon, Portugal, where she studied Electrical Engineering, Manuela Veloso came to CMU in 1986 eager to learn artificial intelligence from the founders and leaders of the field at CMU. She truly enjoyed her graduate student times, and she finished her Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1992 with a thesis in AI on Planning by Analogy, advised by the great late Jaime Carbonell. Manuela joined the faculty in the Computer Science Department, where she enthusiastically has carried visionary research in AI for close to three decades. She founded the CORAL laboratory to research AI agents that collaborate, observe, reason, act and learn. The lab became the home to many generations of AI students, in particular contributing the CoBot autonomous mobile service robots, who have autonomously navigated our buildings for more than 1,000kms since 2009, and teams of soccer robots, who have been participants and often champions of RoboCup since 1997. Her technical contributions are captured in hundreds of publications with her students and multiple recognitions. Manuela has taught and mentored her students to carry ambitious AI research to aim high at advancing science, engineering and social impact. She is proud to have graduated 43 Ph.D. students, who are now leaders in academia and top technology companies. Manuela is the Herbert A. Simon University Professor in the School of Computer Science, and past Head of the Machine Learning Department.

She is a Fellow of all four major associations in her research areas – AAAS, AAAI, ACM, and IEEE. In July 2018, she accepted an intriguing and challenging opportunity to create J. P. Morgan Chase AI Research. She joined as Managing Director and has since grown a team of nearly 40 Master and Ph.D. level AI researchers. The team pursues aspirational goals to bring AI to complex multiagent economic systems, eradication of financial crime, safe effective data sharing, and responsible optimal interactions with stakeholders. She leads the team building upon her formidable CMU experience. Manuela always carries and presents her research with great passion, inspiring many – including underrepresented groups – to follow their dreams in technology.

Manuela has a large, wonderful supportive family with her husband of many years, her children and grandchildren, her parents, siblings, nephews, aunts and uncle. The best times of the year are her family gatherings, most especially in Portugal.

Longtime educator Paul Gerlach has committed his life and career to music education. A triple graduate of CMU’s College of Fine Arts after studying trumpet, musicology and piano an earning four degrees, Paul is the Director of the Kiltie Band and an Artist Lecturer for CMU’s School of Music. Paul’s dedication to the Kiltie Band goes back to his own days as a student performer in the famous “Band Without Pants.”

For the last 38 years, Paul has tirelessly worked with students to nurture musical talent and aspirations.

Jack McGrath has been a champion for Carnegie Mellon University for decades. He had a long successful career as a senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked with CEOs and boards of directors of Fortune 100 public corporations to change their strategies and transform their business models.  His insights from his successful career have carried through every role he plays with the university.

From his contributions on the Board of Trustees and the Tepper Business Board of Advisors, to his leadership role as co-chair of the Tepper Quad campaign, Jack has also been a supporter of students, of scholarships and of the university’s mission. Through his support of learning research, Jack has also been pivotal in helping the university’s journey to transform global education.

Cory Bird wanted to leave something meaningful behind at CMU. So, as a fifth-year scholar he founded the Nooks project to create learning and collaboration spaces for students around campus. Cory was also co-President of Project Rwanda, a student-led group aimed at enhancing the ties between the CMU Pittsburgh and Africa campuses. And Cory spent nearly two years organizing events to bring students together from our CMU-Africa, CMU-Q, and CMU Pittsburgh campuses.

A Mellon College of Science graduate, Cory was involved with the CubeRover project under the guidance of Astrobotic Technologies and Dr. William ‘Red’ Whittaker. After graduating in May 2020, Cory is beginning a career in product management at Cricut with aspirations to pursue a Ph.D. in Astrobiology in the future.