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Leadership and Innovation Consultant

Dr. Srba is an experienced education leader and IT professional. She has over 16 years of experience in education leadership in executive positions that led to the development of highly sought-after master’s and doctorate programs, using technology to increase adult learner outcomes by 30%, strategic creation of competitive micro-credentialing life-long learning programs, and establishment of key policies to easily maintain regional and specialty accreditation. Dr. Srba earned her Doctorate in Higher Education Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Distance Education from the University of Maryland University College and is a Certified Project Management Professional. Dr. Srba served as an IT consultant to several small and large universities where she implemented a CRM system, Salesforce for Education for enrollment management and led the development of apps within Salesforce and Target X for online advising and adjunct faculty administration. As a former Vice President of Academic and Instructional Technology, Dr. Srba transformed curriculum development by implementing adaptive learning software and pedagogy, 3D Virtual Learning and immersive technology, and the use of Unity gaming software combined with the capabilities of neuroscience that increased successful content engagement and reinforced applied learning techniques for all students. She also engaged in analysis and consulting on IT infrastructure around enrollment management, financial aid, advising, IRB, and compliance. Before her education experience, Dr. Srba was an IT Project Manager for large system integrators in the Washington DC area and spent six years working in financial systems and development for Wall Street giants like Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange.

Electronics Engineer and Embedded Firmware Developer

In one professional challenge I was faced with it was necessary for an engine controller (for backup generators) to work not only under heavy noise (from the spark plug cables and distributor), but also be able to recover from brownouts during starting of the engine, due to heavy loading of the battery by the starter motor. Use of a rechargeable battery was the consensus at the time, but concerns over costs were overwhelming. I suggested instead a hardware/software solution: A transistor circuit and a self-locking relay would output power to the starter solenoid, and have a release voltage as low as 2.5V at the supply. Upon coming out of reset, the controller could check if the relay and transistor circuit was activated, and deduce that it has just woken up from a starter-induced brown-out, and go back to working transparently. The basic idea worked, but I wanted the controller to have a way to verify that it was indeed cranking the motor when a reset came OTHER than just reading back the relay. I knew that memory contents are resilient to pretty low supply voltage. I simply "protected" important groups of variables with CRC checksums, and upon a reboot of the controller I checked if the memory had important data, and whether the checksums passed, and now I could verify independently the program state prior to the brownout reset. This whole saga evolved into an entire platform for reset recovery that is worthy to be implemented in mission critical firmware such as space probes and military rovers.

Technical trouble shooter, problem solver

During the 1980s and 1990s I developed state of the art processes for my company's affiliate Icicle Seafoods of Seattle, Washington. My company Promation Inc. a small R & D group, manufactured a limited quantity of these fairly large fish processing equipment for Icicle. These equipment are still in business in Alaska at the plants of Ocean Beauty/Icicle Seafoods. During the 1970s I worked for K2 corporation, a ski manufacturer, where I developed concepts for testing and designing snow skis. In addition I had the opportunities to involve myself with many local industries in solving some of their technical operational problems. That is when I realized how much I enjoyed thinking out a problem as well as designing and building certain hardware as a final solution. During the 1960s and after my two year term of the US army where I served as an electronic communications equipment specialist, I worked for three years for Tally corporation, Seattle, as a design engineer in electromechanical devices. After retirement in 1997 with four year idleness went back to developing automation for the seafood industry as well as construction of large garbage recycling and sorting equipment. The above represents a sample of around half of my life's experiences in many technical endeavors. Being fortunate to have all those opportunities to include successes as well as many failures I have reached the point where I feel anything can be done given a strong motive for doing it. I would also add that my most successful accomplishment derived after frequent and persistent cooperation with people who enjoyed solving problems as much as I do. Sometimes I ask myself what would I enjoy most? the answer would be to have intellectual conversations, walking on my favored trail, with my good friend a smart robot on my side.