Alumni Briefs FORBES 30 UNDER 30 Two Villanova Engineering alumni were included in the 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30 list for North America.
DEVELOPMENTS | ALUMNI
Shannon Rhodes ’16 CpE was named to Forbes’ Sports list. As senior director of connected devices for the NBA, Rhodes and her teams have developed nine global apps for the league, as well as a new streaming app for the Los Angeles Clippers. Rhodes was previously a software engineer at ESPN—a position she says she landed in part because of her senior capstone project at Villanova, which used a $10 camera to automate the 1st-and-10 line for high school football teams.
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Adam Butchy, PhD, ’16 ChE was included on Forbes’ Healthcare list as a co-founder of HEARTio, a biotechnology startup that uses artificial intelligence to detect cardiovascular issues more quickly and accurately. As chief strategy officer, Butchy is responsible for HEARTio’s short- and long-term vision, overseeing regulatory submissions, HIPAA compliance and talent acquisition, among other duties. Forbes’ annual 30 Under 30 list includes 600 standout individuals from across 20 industries who were selected for their social impact, inventiveness, potential and scale, among other factors.
A SALUTE TO HER SUCCESS Liz Porter ’93 EE, an executive vice president at Leidos, was featured in the Winter 2024 cover story of Military Spouse magazine. In the article, Porter discusses how she built her successful engineering career while navigating military moves in support of her husband, US Navy officer Adam Porter ’94 CLAS—a challenging feat considering military spouses have an unemployment rate of more than seven times the national average, the magazine notes. “When I think about some of the most successful people that I have working for me, there’s a level of independence and there’s a level of ‘can do,’” says Porter, a member of the College’s Engineering Advisory Board. “I think military spouses really bring that no matter what their background is.”
TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION The College of Engineering hosted Robert Csongor ’83 EE in November for the presentation “My Journey in Silicon Valley: The Rise of AI, Self-Driving Cars and NVIDIA.” Speaking to a packed audience in Tolentine Hall, Csongor reflected on his career starting as one of the first 20 employees of NVIDIA in 1995, to current-day NVIDIA, one of the five most valuable companies in the world powering the revolution in artificial intelligence. Csongor emphasized the value of agility, intellectual honesty and culture, noting that failure of ideas and learning from them is fundamental to engineering success. “Give yourself a mission that solves a real problem in the world. Find smart, hardworking people, be passionate about it, and don’t have too much ego,” he said. “If you do what you love, work hard. Good things will follow.”