James P. Howard, II is a multifaceted professional with extensive experience in data science, consulting, teaching, and community service. He has previously worked as a consultant to various United States government agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Executive Office of the President, and the Department of Homeland Security. Additionally, he served as an internal consultant on scientific computing for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Dr. Howard is also deeply committed to education, having taught mathematics and statistics at the University of Maryland Global Campus since 2010, as well as public affairs at other institutions. His career highlights include involvement in innovative projects such as modeling the spread of infectious diseases, predicting global events, researching blockchain applications in government, and designing rescue devices for building collapse scenarios. He has authored and co‑edited several books on these subjects.

John F. Beyers, PhD, is Program Chair and Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Maryland Global Campus (formerly UMUC). Dr Beyers leads a global department of 200+ faculty to serve the educational needs of over 20,000 non-traditional, underrepresented undergraduate students globally. He is responsible for new program development, curriculum planning, teaching effectiveness and Learning Outcomes Assessment. Prior to his current position, Dr Beyers was the Associate Director for the Center of Distance Education at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr Beyers has an extensive academic background as a faculty member and leader of one of the largest online mathematics and statistics departments in the country. While earning a PhD in mathematics education from American University (his dissertation was the first to earn “pass with distinction” in over two decades), Dr Beyers began his career in innovative education as Research Coordinator on the NCTM Standards 2000Project, which resulted in the national standards document Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000). He later worked with post-secondary students and faculty at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Distance Education on innovative distance education models to determine how difficult/easy is it for faculty to embed or integrate technologies into a course and in harmony with their pedagogic model.

Dr Beyers has been recognized for his efforts as an innovative academic leader in higher education. In 2012, he received the UMUC Presidential Award and the University System of Maryland’s Faculty Fellowship Award from the Chancellor’s Office. In 2007, he received the Adelle F Robertson National Educator of the Year Award (UPCEA) and in 2006, he received the Alexander Charters Mid-Atlantic Region Educator of the Year Award (UPCEA).

Dr Beyers has published and presented extensively on the topics of course redesign, adaptive and accelerated learning models, distance learning, and mathematics education.

His current interest is focused on how adaptive learning can be used to deepen the quality of faculty-student engagement and enable development of higher order thinking skills. Dr Beyers has an extensive network of academic colleagues and adaptive learning vendors to establish an Adaptive Resources Community (ARC).