Leadership & Faculty
The people who architect, validate, and advance the governed credential infrastructure of the AI economy. Three distinct tiers — each with a defined role, scope, and institutional function.
Dr. Ivan Del Valle
Roger Sherman Holdings · Roger Sherman Institute of TechnologyDr. Del Valle is the Founder & Strategic Architect of Roger Sherman Holdings, a platform holding company dedicated to building the infrastructure layer for the AI era. His work focuses on transforming emerging technologies into governed, auditable, and commercially defensible systems — ensuring that autonomous and AI-driven operations can scale without creating hidden risk, regulatory exposure, or institutional fragility.
Through Roger Sherman Holdings, Dr. Del Valle designs and oversees a portfolio of specialized entities spanning education, applied research, compliance automation, intellectual property, and platform licensing — all unified by a systems-level approach to trust and accountability. He specializes in architecting frameworks that integrate AI governance, risk management, human oversight, and agentic system design into cohesive, enterprise-ready operating models.
Dr. Del Valle is the creator of the Sherman-Nexus™ Applied Intelligence Operating System and the inventor of a growing portfolio of 12 provisional USPTO patent applications covering AI governance, trust architectures, compliance engines, and agentic orchestration. He operates as a backend strategic architect — building scalable, licensable infrastructures that enable institutions, enterprises, and partners to deploy AI responsibly without sacrificing control, credibility, or long-term resilience.
Ruth Sus
Roger Sherman HoldingsRuth Sus serves as Chief of Staff at Roger Sherman Holdings, providing executive-level operational, financial, and organizational leadership across a portfolio of entities focused on AI governance, data architecture, compliance systems, and applied intelligence consulting. She operates as the control center of execution — ensuring that strategy, finance, and operations remain tightly aligned as the organization scales.
Ruth is directly accountable for financial governance and internal controls, overseeing accounting operations, budget planning, financial reporting, and risk mitigation frameworks. She ensures the accuracy, integrity, and compliance of financial results in accordance with GAAP, while implementing disciplined controls designed to support long-term sustainability, audit readiness, and investor confidence.
Earlier in her career, Ruth held senior operational roles within the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, including Director of a federally regulated Section 8 Housing Program, where she managed large-scale programs subject to strict HUD oversight and consistently achieved top audit evaluations. She later contributed to compensation, benefits, and HR operations within a global technology enterprise environment. Known for her precision, discretion, and calm execution under pressure, she is a trusted operational partner to executive leadership.
Distinguished experts providing non-governing architectural insight and strategic guidance to the Roger Sherman ecosystem. Advisory Board members hold no operational authority, governance role, or faculty function within RSIT — their contribution is purely strategic and intellectual.
Aksinya Staar
PrincipalAksinya Staar is a futurist and interdisciplinary strategist advancing polymathic thinking as a practical framework for navigating complexity and long-term transformation. Her work synthesizes learning science, organizational behavior, foresight, and cultural dynamics to support institutional resilience, adaptability, and responsible innovation. Her integrative approach is especially valuable where AI, governance, and human factors intersect.
Douglas Keevers
PhDDr. Douglas Keevers is a senior governance expert specializing in AI governance, cybersecurity, and institutional trust architecture. His work focuses on designing audit-ready, compliance-aware digital systems that balance innovation with accountability in regulated environments — translating technical and regulatory complexity into coherent institutional structures that support long-term resilience and auditability.
Pankaj Mehrotra
PhDDr. Pankaj Mehrotra brings a rigor-driven perspective on machine learning, large-scale analytics, and enterprise-scale AI systems. His work focuses on assessing AI architectures, performance trade-offs, scalability, and long-term sustainability within multi-stakeholder environments — with particular depth in understanding how advanced analytical systems interact with governance, risk, and operational realities at scale.
George Vigil
PhD, EdDDr. George Vigil is a senior academic and executive leader whose work centers on leadership coherence, executive governance, and institutional transformation in AI-enabled environments. His dual doctoral background bridges the rigor of research with the demands of executive practice — emphasizing that AI adoption without a coherent leadership architecture produces disruption, not progress.
Pedro Nunes
PhDDr. Pedro Nunes brings an international, policy-aware perspective on innovation governance and digital transformation. His work operates at the intersection of technology strategy and public policy — examining how institutions build the governance capacity required to make AI deployment not merely effective, but defensible across regulatory, ethical, and civic dimensions.
Thomas Lauritzen
PhDDr. Thomas Lauritzen specializes in aligning advanced AI capabilities with governance, sustainability, and institutional integrity across multi-stakeholder environments. Grounded in systems thinking, he addresses the structural challenge of deploying AI at enterprise scale without sacrificing the oversight architectures that make such deployment accountable.
John Ferguson
PhDDr. John Ferguson focuses on the human dimensions of transformation — leadership readiness, cultural coherence, and ethical grounding in AI-driven change. His core argument: AI systems do not fail in isolation. They fail within cultural and leadership environments that were never designed to govern them. His work equips institutions to build those environments deliberately.
Cantekin Ertekin
PhDDr. Cantekin Ertekin specializes in algorithmic robustness, interpretability, and system-level behavior of AI models operating under real-world constraints. His work examines how machine learning systems perform outside laboratory conditions — where data is messy, distributions shift, and the cost of failure is institutional rather than theoretical.
Selected experts in AI and emerging technologies providing on-call, asynchronous guidance and evaluation across RSIT programs. Faculty members do not deliver live instruction — they ensure academic rigor, applied relevance, and professional-quality outcomes across learner projects and capstone submissions.
Senior Academic Lead supporting learners in framing AI and emerging technologies within strategic, governance, and leadership contexts — bridging technical innovation with executive-level decision-making.
Specializes in ethical AI, public governance, and adult education systems. Supports learners in critically engaging with AI and emerging technologies within regulatory, ethical, and institutional contexts.
Expert in digital learning systems and instructional technology. Brings a rigorous, systems-oriented approach to evaluating applied projects and capstone work for clarity, structure, and practical relevance.
Supports learners in translating analytical frameworks into practical applications at the intersection of business analytics, quality assurance, and strategic decision-making.
AI researcher and applied mathematician specializing in the evaluation, validation, and trustworthiness of AI systems. Ensures methodological soundness, interpretability, and alignment with real-world performance requirements.
Senior applied data science professional with deep expertise in AI and machine learning. Supports learners in refining AI and data science capstone work with a focus on methodological rigor, analytical soundness, and interpretability.
Dual doctoral expert in Education and Business Administration. Focuses on how institutions design and implement change where governance, culture, and emerging technologies intersect.
Seasoned technical writer and analyst with deep expertise in translating complex technical and regulatory concepts into clear, structured, actionable insights. Ensures clarity and rigor in capstone submissions.
Guides learners in applying AI and emerging technologies to real-world organizational challenges — aligning analytical insights with business objectives, stakeholder communication, and operational execution.
AI and machine learning specialist with hands-on experience in large language models and data-driven system design. Supports learners in structuring and validating applied AI projects with technical rigor and clarity.
Education and technology specialist focused on AI literacy and computational thinking. Supports learners in developing applied projects that demonstrate conceptual clarity, disciplined reasoning, and practical relevance.
Enterprise-level change and risk specialist with 10+ years across healthcare and financial services. Senior transformation roles at HCSC and Deloitte Consulting — operationalizing governance-aware delivery models and ethical data practices.
Learning systems and academic operations professional specializing in the design, rollout, and support of technology-enabled education at scale. Ensures consistency, quality, and scalability across distributed digital programs.
Join the Ecosystem
Whether you're a practitioner seeking recognized AI governance credentials, an institution exploring academic partnership, or an expert interested in the Institute-Recognized Experts™ registry — your next step is below.