Dr. Stephen Roth

Associate Provost and Dean Graduate School
University of Maryland, College Park

Stephen Roth is Associate Provost and Dean of the Graduate School. He has been on the faculty at Maryland since 2003 and a professor in the School of Public Health since 2014. Prior to joining the Graduate School in 2023, Dr. Roth held a variety of leadership roles on the campus, including as associate chair and graduate director for the Department of Kinesiology; Interim Director of the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health; Director of the Public Health Science B.S. program; and most recently as Associate Dean for academic and faculty affairs. Dr. Roth also served as director of outreach and instructional innovation for the university's Teaching and Learning Transformation Center.

Dr. Roth is a professor of kinesiology and affiliate faculty for the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) graduate program, and his scholarly research focuses on human genetic variation and its implications for health and exercise-related traits, including the ethics of genetic testing for talent identification in sport. Dr. Roth is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and the National Academy of Kinesiology. He also serves as an editorial board member for Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

Dr. Roth earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in kinesiology from the University of Maryland, and B.S. in health and human performance from the University of Montana.

Dr. Karen Panetta

Dean for Graduate Education
Tufts University School of Engineering

Dr. Karen Panetta is the Dean of Graduate Education for the School of Engineering and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Tufts University. She is a prolific inventor changing lives through her pioneering approaches to solve society’s greatest challenges using technology. She was a computer engineer for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) where her algorithms played an instrumental role in developing the first complete digital twin of a CPU design capable of running software programs that have redefined semi-conductor manufacturing and test processes and led the way for other complex system simulations to be possible.

Karen Panetta received a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Boston University, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University. As the first female electrical engineer to be given tenure in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department, Panetta continues to promote the interests of women in her field. From 2007 to 2009, she was the worldwide director for IEEE Women in Engineering, the largest international professional organization dedicated to promoting women engineers and scientists, and she served as editor-in-chief of the IEEE Women in Engineering magazine. She is the faculty adviser to the Tufts student chapters of both the Society of Women Engineers and the IEEE, and is founder of the nationally acclaimed Nerd Girls program, which promotes engineering disciplines to young students. She is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and was awarded the 2013 IEEE Award for Distinguished Ethical Practices for exemplary contributions and leadership in developing ethics and social responsibility in students. She has received several NASA and National Science Foundation research grants, including the NSF CAREER Award. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Panetta the Presidential Award for Science and Engineering Education and Mentoring. Karen Panetta’s research focuses on developing efficient algorithms for simulation, modeling, and signal and image processing for security and biomedical applications.

Dr. Janet C. Rutledge

Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Janet C. Rutledge is currently serving as the Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She is also a faculty member in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department. Prior positions in the Graduate School include Associate Dean, Senior Associate Dean and Interim Vice Provost for Graduate Education. Before coming to UMBC she was the program director for the Graduate Research Fellowships Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In her prior positions at NSF she served as a program director in the Division of Engineering Education and Centers and the Division of Undergraduate Education. She also chaired the NSF-wide coordinating committee for the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. Formerly she was on the faculty in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Northwestern University with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Under Dr. Rutledge’s leadership, the Graduate School at UMBC manages the full “lifecycle” of a graduate student from recruitment and admissions to progressions and graduation. The Graduate School has transitioned to a nearly paperless system for processing admissions applications, and they are in the process of transitioning their progressions and graduation systems. During her tenure she created the graduate student development unit that manages their diversity, retention, and completion activities. Their activities have been supported by external grants such as the NSF Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) and LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate, both phases of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) PhD Completion Project, the CGS Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion, and the TIAA-CREF/CGS Enhancing Student Financial Education project. She was instrumental in UMBC’s receiving recognition by the CGS and Peterson’s for “Innovation in Promoting an Inclusive Graduate Community.” The graduate student development unit has recently expanded to include postdoctoral affairs.

Dr. Rutledge received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She received the M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her primary research area is modeling and compensating for the effects of sensorineural hearing loss and other communication disorders.

She is the author of numerous journal and conference publications, an undergraduate textbook, and holds a patent. She has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over $20 million dollars in grant funding in support of research and graduate education, mostly from federal agencies and private foundations. In addition to grants previously mentioned, she also served as a co-PI for the NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant and for the I 3 grant on Evaluation, Integration and Institutionalization of Initiatives to Enhance STEM Student Success.

Among her honors and accomplishments, Rutledge has served as a Trustee of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for more than 25 years, and as an ABET engineering program evaluator for the IEEE and the Biomedical Engineering Society. Rutledge serves on the Council of Graduate Schools Board of Directors, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Minority Ph.D. Program Advisory Committee, and is chair-elect of the GRE Board. She is Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Barrie School, (an independent school serving grades PK-12).