Meet the Data Center Education Faculty:



Robert M. Cannistra

Distinguished Professional Lecturer for the School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Marist College

cannistra

Robert M. Cannistra is a Distinguised Professional Lecturer for the School of Computer Science and Mathematics at Marist College. Mr. Cannistra holds the responsibilities of Information Technology discipline chair, School of Computer Science and Mathematics lab coordinator, and project manager for the Center for Collaborative and On-Demand Computing. Mr. Cannistra also provides consulting services for network infrastructure, design and security needs.

Mr. Cannistra has held the positions of Northeast Regional Manager, Technical Services Manager and Senior Consultant for a Cisco Gold Partner. His time there was spent designing, configuring, and implementing highly accessible data networks for various enterprise, service provider and Internet companies across the world, some of those clients include Quaker Oats, Milwaukee Electric Tool, AC Nielsen, Cogent Communications and EthnicGrocer.com, among numerous others. Upon the completion of each client implementation he would develop and instruct customized training courses to help the client manage the newly designed networks. Mr. Cannistra has taught as an adjunct faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for their Computer Science, Engineering, and Information Technology curricula and as an adjunct technical instructor for a technical institute in Poughkeepsie, NY. He has also held the positions of Senior Network Engineer for About.com, Inc., Internet and Intranet Infrastructure Webmaster at AT&T Solutions and Systems Engineer at Kodak Imaging Services.

Mr. Cannistra holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science/Information Systems, a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, an Associate of Science in Liberal Arts and Science and several industry technical certifications including CCAI-CCNA, CCAI-Security, CCNA, CCNP, CCDA, CCDP, CCSP, CSE, MCSE, and CLP.

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Casimer DeCusatis

Assistant Professor - Introduction to Cybersecurity

DeCusatis

Casimer DeCusatis, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY. His interests include cybersecurity (as principle investigator for the NSF SecureCloud program), software-defined data centers, and optical networking. He is an IBM Distinguished Engineer Emeritus, a Cisco Distinguished Speaker, a Fellow of the IEEE, OSA, and SPIE, an IBM Master Inventor with over 150 patents, and recipient of several industry awards, including the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the Sigma Xi Walston Chubb Innovation Award, the EDN Innovator of the Year Award, the Mensa Creative Achievement Award, the Penn State Outstanding Scholar Alumnus / Mark Luchinsky Memorial Lecture, and the IEEE/HKN Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer Award (including a citation from the President of the United States and an American flag flown in his honor over the U.S. Capitol. He is co-author of over 200 technical papers, book chapters, and encyclopedia articles, and editor of the Handbook of Fiber Optic Data Communication (now in its 4rd edition. Dr. DeCusatis received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.) in 1988 and 1990, respectively, and the B.S. degree magna cum laude in the Engineering Science Honors Program from the Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA) in 1986.

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Robert E. McFarlane

Adjunct Instructor - Introduction to Facilities

McFarlane

Robert McFarlane has spent more than 35 years in communications consulting, with experience in every segment of the industry including, cable design, fiber optics, data communications, telephony, financial trading systems, data centers, satellite earth stations, video and multi-media, and acoustics. He is often interviewed by the trade press and has been asked to speak at countless seminars on building infrastructure for electronic communications, evolving technologies and the highly demanding requirements of trading floor and data center design on which he is a leading expert.

In addition to teaching “Introduction to Facilities” for the IDCP, Bob is also a member of the Adjunct Faculty of New York University. Appearances have included AFCOM, the largest organization for Data Center Professionals, and the TechTarget “Data Center Decisions” Seminars where he has been a featured speaker the past five years. He has conducted sessions on overall Data Center Design, High Density Power and Cooling, Backup Power Systems and Applications, and Energy Efficiency for the “Green” Data Center.

Bob is a graduate of Colorado State University where he majored in Engineering and Physics, served as research engineer in the Department of Hearing and Speech Science, and lectured in acoustics and bio-instrumentation for seven years at the graduate level. He subsequently served Northern Illinois University as Director of Engineering for the Division of Communications Services and was Manager of Engineering for the nationwide Blue Cross/Blue Shield Computer Network before developing a wide range of high technology consulting fields.

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Peter M. Curtis

Adjunct Instructor - Advanced Facilities Management

Curtis

Peter Curtis is the founder of Power Management Concepts, LLC. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electro-Mechanical Computer Technology and a Master of Science degree in Energy Management. Mr. Curtis has over twenty five years of experience working in the Mission Critical Facilities Engineering industry in the areas of Banking and Finance, Defense, Electric and Water Utilities, Energy Management and Education.

He is also an Associate Professor at New York Institute of Technology and New York University, teaching courses in Facilities Operations and Management, Energy Management, Energy Equipment Assessment, Fundamentals of Building Systems and Energy Security. Mr. Curtis has been a keynote speaker at semiannual conferences for the following organizations: 7 x 24 Exchange, International Facilities Management Association (IFMA), Association of Facilities Engineers (AFE), Data Center Dynamics and AFCOM.

Mr. Curtis is a principal author for the IEEE, where he has written an online book entitled "An Introduction to Mission Critical Facilities Operations". In 2007 Wiley/IEEE published his second book "Maintaining Mission Critical Systems in a 24/7 Environment"; a best seller in its class. Mr. Curtis also writes a bi-monthly column for Mission Critical Magazine. Throughout his career, Peter has written many whitepapers and articles concerning critical power and business resiliency for data centers & critical infrastructures.

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Lin Zhou

Adjunct Instructor - Project Management

Zhou

Dr. Lin Zhou has over 10 years of experience of managing large complex global projects in the fields of semiconductor, data storage and software product development. He earned the PhD from the University of Glasgow UK and the Master Certificate from the Business School of the George Washington University US. While he is working in the top U.S. hi-tech companies, Dr. Zhou had increased responsibilities in both project management and people management. He is currently an Executive Project Manager at IBM Technology Division. Dr. Zhou is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He has authored many patents and papers, and lectured in international conferences. He has been invited regularly to review publications for academic journal. Dr. Zhou's successes are recognized by many awards.

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Margaret A. Greenly

Adjunct Instructor - Managing IT Organizations

Greenly

I am originally from Virginia and attended college at Seton Hill in Greensburg, PA. I then earned my MS in Social Work from Columbia University and spent many years as a social worker at MSKCC in NYC on the Pediatrics Unit. My work with children who had cancer, and their families, greatly contributed to my core values and my development as a person and a professional.My husband and I moved to the Hudson Valley in 1991, with our 3-year old son because we wanted a different life style for him. I worked for 8 years at Vassar Brothers Medical Center, in Poughkeepsie, NY, where I was the Director of Patient Services. During that time, my husband died suddenly, leaving me with my by then 5 year old son and a 10 month old baby boy. I decided we would all have a more secure future if I went back to school, so I earned my MPA at Marist in 1997, with a concentration in health care administration. Since 1997, I have been the Director of Patient Safety and Quality Improvement at St. Francis Hospital, also in Poughkeepsie NY. I am honored to be on the adjunct faculty of Marist College since 2000, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses, on line and “on the ground." I still keep up my social work skills by having a small private practice in the field of adoption -- domestic and international. I like knowing that my two Master’s degrees help me touch lives in 3 different ways -- as a clinician in my adoption work, as a hospital leader, and as a college instructor. And, yes, I do have a life. I live in Salt Point, with my two sons, my three Labrador retrievers, and three cats. I'm very active in the community, especially in Boy Scouts -- I felt that would be good for 2 boys growing up without a father and I’m proud to say they are both Eagle Scouts. I enjoy gardening, cooking, and walking. I earned my Black Belt in karate in October 2010, at the age of 63… and, in case you are wondering ---yes, I can break a board. Kee ya! I’m excited about teaching this class and look forward to working with all of you.

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Ron Coleman

Professor of Computer Science at Marist College - Introduction to Cloudy Mobile App Development

Coleman

Dr. Coleman has lead and deployed cloud-based and mobile award-winning projects for the open source community. Three are active in production in the field. His research and teaching interests are in software development, games, and statistics. His research has been published in several international journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Coleman holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

 

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Mike Buzzetti

Professor of Computer Science at Marist College - Introduction to Cloudy Mobile App Development

Buzzetti

Mike Buzzetti is an Solutions Architect at The New York Times. Currently he is helping build a globally dispersed, low latency, cloud based messaging system for online media. Before joining The New York Times, Mike was an IT Architect at the IBM Design Center with worldwide focus on client’s cloud based enterprise infrastructures. He began his IBM career in 2003 at the Test and Integration Center for Linux. In 2006, Mike joined the Design Center, where he helps clients design optimized IT Infrastructures. He designed a number of infrastructures that featured Linux on the mainframe and has had extensive experience helping clients use cloud and virtualization in complex environments. Mike has been a leader in implementing cloud computing with a number of publication on the subject. Mike has authored a book on Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) on z/OS® security,as well as a number of whitepapers. He is a regular presenter at user conferences and a number of IBM-sponsored venues. Prior to joining IBM, Mike was a System Administrator and Programmer for the Chemung County (NY) Department of Social Services from 1997 until 2001.

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