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Dr. Timothy M. Stearns

Professor Stearns has taught for 16 years at California State University Fresno's Craig School of Business. He served on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Journal and was Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management in 2007 & 2009. Dr. Stearns has taught and lectured on entrepreneurship and innovation to students and executives in Thailand, Poland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macau, India, Singapore, Germany and China. He is a co-founder of the National Network for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization as well as President of the Central Valley Business Incubator and co-founder of Kids Invent! He co-leads the Regional Jobs Initiative Executive Committee and served on the Fresno Mayor's Creative Economy Council. In January 2009, Professor Stearns was elected a Fellow of the U.S. Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship and received CSU Fresno's 2009 President's Award of Excellence. Most recently, he co-founded the American Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, LLC. He received a B.S. in Sociology from San Jose State University and an M.B.A. and D.B.A. from Indiana University Bloomington.

John Feland, Ph.D.

Dr. Feland brings over 15 years of highly innovative product design experience to Cogswell. As a passionate innovator, educator and leader, Dr. Feland is the founder and CEO of Argus Insights, a leader in Experience Analytics. Argus Insights' services provide enterprises with competitive experience landscapes as well as a deeper understanding of how their products and services impact target users. In 2009-2010, Dr. Feland was the executive director for Stanford University's ME310 Design Innovation course. In 2008, he served as chief technologist for SK Telecom America's R&D Group. Prior to SKTA, Dr. Feland led Synaptics' marketing division to help handset manufacturers integrate next-generation capabilities. He has managed the development of over 100 unique customer product experiences with his expertise in strategic foresight and product planning. Dr. Feland was the principal architect for the Onyx Concept Phone, the world's first capacitive multi-touch mobile experience. He holds an S.B. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Bret Alexander Sweet

Mr. Sweet is Cogswell's first Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, following his work in launching the College's Entrepreneurship program in 2010. He continues to develop Cogswell's entrepreneurship curriculum and teaches a variety of entrepreneurship courses. He is certified by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and has taught business building strategies to thousands of Bay Area low-income youths and their families. From 2003-2007, Mr. Sweet was the lead entrepreneurship instructor at BUILD, which provides entrepreneurship education to high school students in low-income areas boasts an excellent college acceptance rate for its seniors. His activities have garnered him a host of accolades, including the NFTE's prestigious Teacher of the Year Award in 2004 and a speaking engagement at the 2012 NAACP National Convention. Mr. Sweet's background is as an entrepreneurial musician, music promoter and restaurateur. He received a B.A. in Television and Radio Production from San Francisco State University and an MBA from the University of San Francisco.

Carol Cassara

Ms. Cassara joins Cogswell after an extensive career in corporate and marketing communications, including more than a dozen years with Silicon Valley companies in the mainframe, semiconductor and mass storage industries. From 2006-2010, Ms. Cassara was an adjunct professor at the University of Tampa teaching courses in writing and mass media. From 1996-2009, she was senior vice president of Tucker/Hall Inc., a PR and communications consulting firm that services multinational corporations and Fortune 500 companies, where she supervised writing, public involvement and senior media relations. Previously, Ms. Cassara was the director of corporate communications at Maxtor Corporation. She attended the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and holds a B.S. in Mass Media and an M.S. in Communication Theory and Research from the Florida State University, where she did doctoral work in social psychology.

David Gladstein, Ph.D.

Dr. Gladstein brings to Cogswell over 20 years of software engineering experience. He has worked as a software engineer for a variety of San Francisco Bay Area companies including SiXiTS, EvLab and The Orphanage. In addition, Dr. Gladstein has extensive experience in overseeing software development from a managerial role. From 2000-2003, he served as the director of bioinformatics at Expressgen Inc. Prior to that, he was the director of mathematical sciences at Afferent Systems Inc. and senior software developer at Franz Inc. Dr. Gladstein is experienced in software development and scripting in Python, Java, Haskell and C. He is also competent in Maya, AfterEffects, Nuke and computer graphics production in general.

Dr. Gladstein received a B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Union College and a Ph.D. in computer science from Northeastern University, where he wrote his doctoral thesis: "Compiler Correctness for Concurrent Languages." He later obtained a B.A.S. in digital visual media from Ex’pression College for Digital Arts, and still composites for fun.

Dr. Timothy Duncan

Dr. Timothy Duncan has been a member of the faculty of Cogswell College since 1994 as well as Dean of the college from 2005-2008. Dr. Duncan founded the Digital Audio Technology program, where he teaches many of its courses. He has synthesized his broad understanding of the music profession and the music industry to create an innovative audio program that targets both the manufacturing and the music production sides of the audio industry.

Dr. Duncan completed degrees at the University of Tennessee, University of Memphis and University of Cincinnati, and pursued additional study at Brooklyn College, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. In addition to teaching, he has worked for Leapfrog Enterprises and the Asonda Corporation. He is a member of the College Music Society, the International Computer Music Association and the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group. Dr. Duncan's areas of specialization include sound synthesis, music composition and computer programming.

Albert Chen

Albert Chen has been an assistant professor and full-time faculty member at Cogswell since 2007. He heads the Game Development concentration under the Digital Arts and Animation (DAA) program and is dedicated to supporting and mentoring aspiring game developers and game-related entrepreneurs.

Prior to joining Cogswell, Mr. Chen was a professional game developer for over 12 years with credits in nearly two dozen game titles. He has worked for LucasArts, The 3DO Company, Factor 5 and EA. Besides teaching, he is on the advisory boards of Foothill College and Mission College, speaks regularly in the US and China at events such as the Game Developer Conference and is a game design consultant for several Silicon Valley game start-ups. He has a BA in International Relations from UC Davis and is a certified Scrum Master from Scrum Alliance.

Michael Zachary Huber

Mr. Michael Z. Huber is a computer graphics animator and effects supervisor. He attended film school in San Francisco to study stop motion animation, cinematography and film production before transferring to San Jose State University's pioneering computer animation program. He helped grow the animation software industry by his involvement with the HASH program and his animation company, Gravity 3D.

Starting in 1994, Mr. Huber's freelance visual effects projects for commercials and videos have led to major motion picture and video game projects at Digital Domain, Centropolis FX, Disney, and Electronic Arts. He has been a senior artist, visual effects supervisor, art director, lead lighter and character animator for over 15 feature length films including The Matrix, Armageddon, Minority Report, Black Hawk Down, Titanic, The Fifth Element and Godzilla.