Professor Glen Bright
Prof Glen bright is the Dean of Engineering at the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN), Durban, South Africa. He graduated with a BSc (Mechanical Engineering), MSc (Engineering) and PhD (Engineering) degree at the Ex-University of Natal, in the area of Mechatronics, Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing Systems. He has been a Professor of Mechatronics, Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing Systems since 2002.
He has held the following leadership positions since 2002: Major Leader and Head of the Mechatronics degree program at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand, Head of School for Mechanical Engineering at UKZN, Dean of Research in the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, UKZN; and now Dean of Engineering at UKZN since 2018. He holds the James Fulton Chair based in Mechanical Engineering, since 2008.
Prof Bright graduated with an MBA degree at UKZN, Durban, in 2011. He lectures courses on topics associated with Mechatronics, Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing Systems. His teaching and learning objectives are to provide quality education to students at undergraduate and post graduate level. He is the leader and main supervisor of the Mechatronics and Robotics Research Group, (MR2G), since 1995, at UKZN. Research objectives are to provide industry with ‘state of the art’ solutions for Advanced Manufacturing Systems.
Dr. Arnulfo Azcarraga
An internationally recognized scholar, Dr. Arnulfo Azcarraga is a Professor of Computer Science at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines and served as Vice Chancellor for Research until May of 2013. Prior to his current appointment, he served in other administrative posts at De La Salle University, including Associate Vice Chancellor for External Relations, Executive Vice President, Dean of the Graduate School, and Vice Dean of the College of Computer Studies. He currently serves as a member-at-large on the International Association of Lasallian Universities.
Dr. Azcarraga earned his doctorate in Computer Science from the Grenoble Institute of Technology in France; his master’s degree in Computer Science from the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok; and a bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of the Philippines. In addition, he has participated in a variety of specialized, advanced training and development programs related to his technical areas of expertise, as well as those focused on his scholarship interests. Additionally, he has participated in the International Lasallian University Leadership Program for faculty and administrators.
He has published extensively in a variety of journals related to his discipline, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, the Journal of the Operational Research Society, and the Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics. He is also the author of a chapter in the book Soft Computing for Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, published by Springer. Dr. Azcarraga has presented numerous papers at national and international conferences mainly in the area of the theory and applications of self-organizing maps and neural networks. In addition, he has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Most Outstanding Alumnus of University of the Philippines at Los Baños, and Most Outstanding Employee at the National Computer Center in Manila.