A roundtable discussion entitled “Global Experience—Making a Local Impact on Your Career” will be held on Wednesday, September 12 from 5:30–7:30 pm at Harold Washington College, Room 1115 (30 E. Lake Street in downtown Chicago).

Co-sponsored by WorldChicago, Harold Washington College, and Illinois Institute of Technology, this careers-focused event will welcome current professionals from business, technology, nonprofit, and the arts and architecture sectors as discussion leaders.

After hearing introductions from career professionals, attendees will form small groups to begin brief rotations. All attendees will have the opportunity to hear from each roundtable leader about the influences of previous international experiences on their career paths and how they got to where they are today. Attendees will be encouraged to ask questions and engage in small group conversation with current professionals. This event is ideal for college students, graduate students, recent graduates, and those looking for new opportunities. Light refreshments will be served. Dress is business casual. There will be plenty of opportunities for networking!

The event is free of charge, but advance registration is required through this link. Questions? Contact mmozina@iit.edu.

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Information about the roundtable discussion leaders:

Arts and Architecture
Frederick Grier (M.A.R. ARCH ′10)
Architect, Murphy/Jahn Architects

Frederick Grier has practiced architecture at Murphy/Jahn Architects on projects in Doha, Qatar and in Shanghai and Nanjing, China. Prior to that, he worked at Krueck and Sexton Architects, and Zoka Zola Architecture + Urban Design where he helped with the winning competition entry for social housing in Rijeka, Croatia. Grier received a master’s degree from IIT College of Architecture, and attended the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects and holds LEED AP certification.

Technology
John Haug (M.S. EE ’80), Principal Staff Engineer
Roberson and Associates

John Haug joined Roberson and Associates as a principal staff engineer II in April 2012. Haug is a senior member of the IEEE and worked at Motorola in both research and product development roles for more than 36 years. Most recently he was a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Motorola Solutions where he was involved in physical layer development for the LTE air interface. At Motorola, Haug worked on all aspects of mobile telephone design, developed and analyzed models of adaptive digital filters and oversampled A/D converters, contributed to the advanced development of Motorola’s first digital signal processor, contributed to the development of Motorola’s first cable telephone product, and developed link level and system level simulation tools for many digital cellular systems. He also represented Motorola in several standards organizations. Besides his degree from IIT, Haug has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University; he has also completed coursework and passed the qualifying exams for a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at IIT. He has five United States patents and 11 publications, including an encyclopedia article on mobile technology (co-author).

Nonprofit
Courtney Rowe, Development Coordinator
Girls in the Game

A development coordinator with Girls in the Game. Courtney Rowe has a passion for research. Her areas of interest include wartime sexual violence and its effects during the transitional and post-conflict phases; the role of women in peace building with a focus on civil society; the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of women and former child soldiers; and intimate partner violence in the United States. Rowe has combined her education and passion for international travel to engage in professional development and research experiences abroad. During her undergraduate experience, she interned with a nonprofit organization working with Liberian refugees in Ghana’s Buduburam refugee camp. More recently, she joined DePaul University’s School of Public Service in Pune, India, where she looked at the impact of watershed development on the lives of women in rural villages. In 2011, Rowe’s chapter “The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers” was published by the National Defense University Press in The Monopoly of Force. She recently worked on Department of State grant-funded projects in Iraq with DePaul’s International Human Rights Law Institute. In addition to her professional experience abroad, she loves to travel for fun and has spent time visiting Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Monaco, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

Rowe is in the process of completing her M.S. in Leadership and Policy Studies at DePaul University and holds a B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Business
Matthew Michalak, Vice President and Client Manager
Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Matthew Michalak is a vice president and client manager in the Global Commercial Banking Healthcare and Institutions Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In this role, Michalak leads a team of industry specialists to provide credit and treasury management solutions to health care and traditional nonprofit clients throughout the Heartland Region of the United States. Prior to this role, he had responsibility for a portfolio of clients in the Upper Midwest. Michalak has also held positions as a risk manager and branch manager at a financial cooperative in Chicago, and has worked in Europe through the United Nations. He is conversant in both Spanish and German.

Michalak holds an M.B.A. from the Booth School of Business in Chicago and a B.A. in Economics and Germanic Studies from Central College in Pella, Iowa. He is active in the nonprofit community, serving on the board of directors of Goodcity, a nonprofit consultancy. Previously, Michalak served as a member of the associate board of directors of The Enterprising Kitchen. He is a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.