Future of Work Faculty Academy of SWPA

Sherri McCleary stepped into her role as the inaugural Executive Director of the Digital Foundry at Penn State New Kensington in late 2020, bringing with her a wealth of experience as an executive leader, innovator, and engineer. With over 35 years of experience in technology and business development, Sherri is passionate about leveraging technology to create tangible value and foster meaningful connections between people and innovation. 

As Executive Director of the Digital Foundry, Sherri developed the strategic vision and led the successful launch of this new innovation center in Westmoreland County. Under her leadership, the center has rapidly become a regional hub and a nationally recognized model for integrating advanced manufacturing technologies into the workforce and manufacturing businesses. 

Her past experience encompasses leadership roles across diverse sectors including automotive, commercial transportation, aerospace, defense, and energy/oil & gas.  Prior to her current role, she served as the Director of the Additive Manufacturing Business at Kennametal, where she spearheaded the establishment of a new business unit focused on 3D printing technologies for high-performance metallic materials in demanding industrial and energy applications. 

Before her tenure at Kennametal, Sherri spent over three decades at Alcoa/Arconic, where she held pivotal roles such as Director of Research & Development, overseeing a substantial technology organization responsible for advanced materials, computational modeling, smart manufacturing, data analytics, automation, and additive manufacturing. She also served as Vice President of Technologies & Operations for Alcoa Defense Inc., where she played a crucial role in securing and executing defense technology contracts. 

Throughout her career, Sherri has led pioneering initiatives, from aerospace materials and process development projects to the implementation of innovative materials and manufacturing technologies for prominent automotive and commercial transportation OEMs, and managed advanced manufacturing development and prototyping initiatives. 

Sherri's contributions have garnered recognition through the receipt of numerous U.S. and foreign patents, publications, corporate achievement awards, and the R&D Magazine Top 100 Award. 

She holds an MS in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, a BS in Chemistry from Gannon University, and professional certifications in Intellectual Property and Contract Law, MBA Essentials, and Technology Leadership. 

Michael Richey, Retired.  Former Chief Learning Scientist, Associate Technical Fellow at The Boeing Company. His current research projects include engineering education, socio-technical systems, university online STEM programs and educational data analytics. This multi-disciplinary research brings together expertise in the Learning Sciences, Complexity Science and Social Networking together with data in ways that can create an integrated understanding of system structure and behavior. In exploration and education conversation, Michael discusses topics on:  

1.  Adaptability matters: We are living in an age transformed by intelligent systems. Data science methods including Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing are changing business communication and making workforce expertise and culture more transparent and traceable. Coupling AI and digital data between agents and system culture enables us to see and measure interaction patterns, agent sensing, acting, and knowledge optimization. Changes in the skills and knowledge necessary for successful digital life and workflow are impacting organization cultural systems(Madhavan and Richey, 2016). 

2.  What adaptability looks like: Organizations are inherently relational. Firms are complex adaptive systems composed of a network of employees bound together by contracts, who perform tasks by negotiating internal relationships, as well as by observing, managing, and responding to constantly shifting external environments. (Richey Et Al., 2014 WIP). Key to understanding this flow of human and network capital is measuring the quality of social ties, i.e., making emergent actor expertise explicit as innovation resides within densely connected trusting, social-work related networks. 

3.  The future of the workforce: Business leaders, educators and governments all need to be proactive in up-skilling and retraining people so everyone can benefit from the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 

Technology, she specializes in informal learning environments and the practical application of emerging technologies in education. As a prior LinDiv fellow, her work has focused on the intersection of human-computer interaction and linguistic diversity, leveraging AI to support diverse learners. 

With a rich background spanning International Relations, Foreign Language Education, and Technology, Stephanie brings over a decade of experience in education, program coordination, and instructional design—both in the U.S. and internationally. Her expertise spans public speaking, team leadership, design, video production, and full-stack development, further enriched by diverse professional experiences, including the military and the tourism industry. 

Joanna emphasizes cultivating an experimental mindset while embedding a discipline of process. She held executive leadership positions at a global engineering firm, where she concentrated on generating business opportunities for advanced technologies. Drawing on these experiences, she now coaches and mentors startup founders and small business owners. 

Her areas of expertise are B2B marketing and cost accounting. Over her career, she has partnered with leading educational institutions in marketing and innovation: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Penn State’s Smeal College of Business’s Institute for the Study of Business to Business Markets, and the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State. She also holds a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt certification.