Our Staff

Executive Director

 

 

 

ALYSON GOYETTE CHARLES- ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Alyson is the Assistant Director of the Stack Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She most recently worked as an Advisor in the Student Academic Success and Engagement office. Prior to her return to the capital district, Alyson worked at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, where she was a Career and Academic Counselor. In this position she counseled business graduate students and also led experiential networking trips around the world. While living in Boston, Alyson worked with acclaimed professors from Harvard Business School managing operations at a global education technology start-up company. Preceding this she spent six years working in marketing and client service for a top hedge fund in New York City.

Alyson holds a M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Lesley University and a B.A. in Communications from Assumption University. She enjoys supporting students throughout their college journey. Alyson is passionate about traveling and has visited over 30 countries. When she is not working, she enjoys exploring new places with her husband, daughter and two dogs.

Dan Robeson - School of Business Lead

With almost 20 years of experience in the management field and more than ten years in higher education, Robeson most recently held the position of Senior Vice President of Research and Strategy at Bender Lane Advisory, LLC, in Albany, NY, an entrapreneurial setting with an established private wealth management multi-family office that provides financial services to ultra-high net worth families.

Dr. Robeson has many refereed publications, his most important being “Boards of Directors, Innovation, and Performance: An Exploration at Multiple Levels” in the Journal of Product Innovation Management, published in July, 2013. Robeson has received the following awards: Institute Fellowship, RPI, to pursue Ph.D. in Management (2003); Graduate Management Student Association Success Chairman for MBA (1999-2000); Industry award for highest quality producer of aluminum cans in the country of Mexico (1995), while the Head of Quality Assurance with American National Can Company.

Robeson holds a Ph.D. in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY, an MBA in Innovation from RPI, and a BA in Economics from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.

 

Scott Foster - School of Liberal Arts Lead

Scott Nelson Foster is a painter & draughtsman originally from the Idaho. His paintings and drawings have been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the country. His work is represented regionally by the Carrie Haddad Gallery of Hudson NY. Professor Foster received commissions to create portraits and artwork for the St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish of Schenectady, the Musicians of Ma’alwyck, and the Terra Nova Church of Troy, among others. His courses in drawing and painting emphasize the material aspects of art. An avid experimenter with ancient and contemporary media, he teaches practical alchemy and the secrets of the masters.

 

SHARON G. SMALL - School of Science Lead

Sharon Gower Small received a B.S in Computer Science from Siena College in 1989.  Dr. Small received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from The State University of New York at Albany. Her main area of interest is in Computational Linguistics (CL).  This stemmed from her research work at SUNY Albany where Dr. Small was the lead research scientist and third phase co-PI of the HITIQA project funded under the federal government's AQUAINT program. The AQUAINT program (2001-2008) was a federally funded highly competitive program whose goal was to develop Advanced Question Answering tools for Intelligence Analysts.  Dr. small is the author of numerous conference papers, journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Small was previously CEO of Language Analytic Corporation (2007-2010), where she focused on Computational Linguistics work for various federal contracts as well as the National Science Foundation, Small Business Innovation Research grants.  She is currently the Director of the Siena College Institute for Artificial Intelligence and an Associate Professor in the Computer Science department.