New Additions to Genesis Board of Directors

Genesis is delighted to welcome three new members of its Board of Directors. Dr. Octavia Dobre, Joshua Green and Jennifer Penney joined in November. With the new members, Genesis is proud to have achieved gender parity on its board for the first time, and values the diverse perspectives and contributions that this milestone brings.

Incoming director Dr. Octavia Dobre, is Interim Dean, Professor and Research Chair at the Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science, Memorial University. In 2013, she was a visiting professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and University of Brest, France. Previously, she was with the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA, and Polytechnic Institute of Technology, Romania. Her research interests include technologies for beyond 5G wireless networks, as well as optical and underwater communications. She has authored and co-authored more than 450 internationally referred journal and conference papers in these areas, with over 15,000 citations. Her work has received several best paper awards at flagship conferences. Dr. Dobre is the director of journals of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) and was the inaugural editor-in-chief of the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, as well as the EiC of the IEEE Communications Letters. She was the inaugural chair of the IEEE ComSoc Women in Communications Engineering standing committee, a member-at-large (MaL) of the Board of Governors of the IEEE ComSoc and a MaL of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society. She is the chair of the NSERC Discovery Grant Evaluation Committee for Electrical and Computer Engineering and has also served on Scientific Advisory Boards, e.g., for the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), Spain. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, a Fellow of the IEEE, and an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Dr. Dobre has also received various other distinctions and awards, such as the IEEE ComSoc LoCicoro Award for Exemplary Service to Publications, and was a Fulbright Scholar.

Incoming director Joshua Green is CEO and Co-founder of Mysa, whose mission is to fight climate change through innovation. Mysa designs and produces environmentally friendly technology that enriches the lives of people and the planet, putting homeowners on a path towards sustainability and widespread electrification. Josh has a background in mechanical engineering (B. Eng, Dalhousie University), volunteers with Venture for Canada, and serves on the Board of Econext. He is a proud graduate of the Genesis Enterprise program.

Incoming director Jennifer Penney is Vice-President of Operations with FONEMED, an industry leading virtual healthcare company. She is an experienced Human Resources Leader with a passion for employee engagement and a people first culture. Jennifer is a graduate of Memorial University and holds the designations of Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR), and Society for Human Resource Management - Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).

Genesis is also bidding farewell to outgoing director Dr. Neil Bose, Interim Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at Memorial University. Dr. Bose has had a vital impact on the Genesis board and wider community, and his contributions were invaluable to strengthening the Genesis vision. Prior to accepting the interim provost role, Dr. Bose was Memorial's vice-president (research). Prior to this appointment, Dr. Bose served as principal of the Australian Maritime College (AMC), the national institute for maritime education, training, research and consultancy at the University of Tasmania. Dr. Bose was also a professor of maritime hydrodynamics at the AMC. From 2009 to 2011, he was director of the AMC’s National Centre for Maritime Engineering and Hydrodynamics. He joined the college in May 2007 as the manager of the Australian Maritime Hydrodynamics Research Centre. Before his move to Tasmania, Dr. Bose was a long-standing and respected member of Memorial’s research community. He came to Memorial in May 1987 as an assistant professor in the naval architectural engineering program. In his time at Memorial, Dr. Bose served as director of the Ocean Engineering Research Centre, chair of the ocean and naval architectural engineering program and, in 2003, was named a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Offshore and Underwater Vehicles Design in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.

Check out the full Genesis Board of Directors list here: