GCSP Speaker Bios
David Ethridge
David Ethridge serves as Director and Lead Systems Engineer for Mindbank Consulting Group, LLC, a Woman Owned Small Business (WOBS) headquartered in Reston, VA that provides advanced engineering solutions to federal clients for mission-critical enterprise communications and data systems.
Prior to joining Mindbank, Mr. Ethridge held a variety of positions in systems engineering, product management, technical sales, and project management with aerospace firms (Honeywell, TRW) and commercial telecommunications companies (Ericsson, Aastra).
Mr. Ethridge teaches engineering at Wake Technical Community College and holds electrical engineering degrees from Georgia Tech (B.E.E.) and Stanford University (M.S.E.E.). He also holds a humanities degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.) with concentration on the interplay of science, faith, and culture.
Ross Smith
Ross Smith is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, a blogger, and author of The New AI Revolution in Customer Service and Support and The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention. Holding seven patents, he is a Ph.D. scholar at University College Dublin’s SMARTLab, where he focuses on AI, automation, worker displacement, and the future of work.
A White House Champion of Change honoree, Ross has worked at Microsoft for over 32 years and is currently in M365 Supportability on ChatGPT deployment. He co-founded the Future World Alliance and serves on the leadership councils for iUrbanTeen and the Anita Borg Institute.
He has been deeply involved in gender partner leadership, male ally panels, and AI ethics initiatives at conferences like IEEE Women in Technology Summit, NCWIT Summit, and TechCrunch events.
Dr. Kirsti Cole
Dr. Kirsti Cole became the Co-Director of the Campus Writing and Speaking Program at NC State in 2023. She received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 2008 and previously served as Professor of English at Minnesota State University (2008-2022).
Her research focuses on feminist rhetorics, digital rhetorics, composition, and communication, with a strong emphasis on cross-disciplinary writing and assessment. She has taught courses on digital writing instruction, composition pedagogy, research methods, and social media rhetoric.
Having studied at the University of London and St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge, Dr. Cole brings a global perspective to AI’s role in information literacy and interdisciplinary education.
Phaedra Boinodiris
A fellow with the London-based Royal Society of Arts, Phaedra Boinodiris has focused on inclusion in technology since 1999. She currently leads IBM Consulting’s Trustworthy AI Practice, serves as the AI ethics board focal for all of consulting, and is on the leadership team of IBM’s Academy of Technology. She also leads IBM’s Trustworthy AI Center of Excellence and co-authored AI for the Rest of Us.
Boinodiris is a co-founder of the Future World Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to curating K-12 education in AI ethics. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in AI and Ethics at University College Dublin’s SMARTLab. In 2019, she won the United Nations Woman of Influence in STEM and Inclusivity Award and was recognized by Women in Games International as one of the Top 100 Women in the Games Industry for launching one of the first U.S. scholarship programs for women in game design and development.