Sarah Christen
Director of Infrastructure
Cornell University
2018 Overall Winner
Sarah is the Director of Infrastructure at Cornell University, where she is responsible for leading teams and initiatives that improve technology at Cornell.
With over 15 years of experience in higher education technology, Sarah is dedicated to transforming the industry landscape through innovation and collaboration.
Sarah leads several higher education cloud groups, including The Cornell Cloud Forum and the Higher Education DevOps Collaboration, which bring together the higher education technology community to collaborate on innovative solutions.
Keith Fowlkes
Vice President, Technology Category
E&I Cooperative Services
Keith is the Vice President, Technology Category at E&I Cooperative Services. E&I is the only member-owned, non-profit purchasing cooperative solely focused on serving the education community. In his, role Keith develops new strategies with technology leaders to help institutions save time and money.
With over 25 years of experience in higher education technology, Keith continues to be a thought leader. He frequently speaks at events, contributes as an author for several national publications and writes his own technology blog.
Keith co-founded and serves as the executive director for the HESS Consortium, which focuses on cloud-based systems collaboration and purchasing for institutions.
Rick Haugerud
Assistant Vice President, IT Services
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Rick has truly made the University of Nebraska-Lincoln his home, from obtaining his B.S. and M.B.A., to holding various IT management and leadership positions. As the current Vice President of Information Technology Services, Rick is responsible for information security, IT enterprise architecture, and IT strategic sourcing.
With over 30 years of experience at UNL, and as a member of the ITS senior leadership team, Rick provides leadership and guidance for the centralized information technology staff of over 300 people.
Rick is actively engaged in the higher education-focused IT user groups, EDUCAUSE and Internet2, program committees for security professionals, and global summit user conferences.
Loren Malm
Vice President & CIO
Ball State University
Loren Malm serves as the Vice President for Information Technology and CIO at Ball State University. In his role, Loren oversees and provides strategic leadership for the units and divisions within the IT office.
With over 30 years of experience, and as the university’s liaison to the Board of Trustees Audit and Compliance Committee, Loren works with the President, Board of Trustees and President’s cabinet to provide strategic leadership across all university departments.
Loren is an Indiana representative serving as part of the MHEC Technologies Committee and for the Technologies Executive Committee. Loren also serves on the Internet2 advisory group, where he leads multiple projects.