Stefano Foresti is a Director of Innovation at University of California Merced, School of Engineering. He possess expertise in start ups, entrepreneurship, distributed systems, business development, computer science and 34 more skills. He is proficient in spanish, french, german and latin. Colleagues describe him as "Stefano tackles big projects and follows through on them tenaciously. He excels at identifying subtle but fundamental gaps in product functionality, then bridging them with a simpler design. In our years of working together, he set clear goals without micromanagement, and it was always easy to talk to him. Our conversations deeply influenced how I think about UX design and information management today." and "I have known Dr. Stefano Foresti since 1995 when we met during a dinner party and ended up discussing ideas of how architecture, mathematics, computer science, medicine and the performing arts could come together in a far-fetching project called the "CyberPRINT". From that fun but seemingly unproductive conversation, we developed one of the most successful interdisciplinary research projects in Information Visualization in the U.S. of the late 90s and early 00s. Not only were we successful at attracting grants, contracts, and projects covering 5 different fields (medicine, network monitoring and security, finance, performing arts, and process control) totaling over US$ 5 Million, but also generated 3 spin-off companies, several awarded patents, 20+ live art shows in 3 continents, over 50 publications, multiple academic and industry awards, and more. We also co-founded CROMDI ("Center for the Representation of Multi-Dimensional Information") at the University of Utah -which Dr. Foresti directed since its start in 2000. During all this time (before and during CROMDI) Foresti fruitfully led a wide range of projects, personnel, technologies, and proposals of high complexity, interdisciplinary content, and visionary nature. I directly worked with Dr Foresti during this time (about a decade) and therefore can attest of his strong interpersonal skills, remarkable work ethics, and farsighted leadership not scared of taking risks. Foresti grasps the nuances behind cutting edge ideas and technologies. He has an excellent sense of humor, has little tolerance for non-sense yet tremendous patience to communicate with people of all background and kinds until they get his message or idea (something that was very important for the types of projects and audiences we were dealing with). He is open minded and very easy to work with. I never once had a fight with him in our 10 year research relationship even though we not always agreed on issues. Dr. Foresti has boundless energy and passion to achieve a vision and knows how to bring the right people aboard to do it and use the right language to communicate to others so they buy into it. More concretely, he understands computing, human factors, and design and can bring them together for holistic user centered solutions. He has a proven record of moving projects from conception to R&D to commercialization. In 2005, I decided to leave CROMDI to pursue other interests of mine and in 2010 I left the University of Utah altogether to take a senior position at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Nonetheless, I have maintained communication with Stefano throughout this time and continued to be impressed by his professional and business path. In short, I offer my strongest possible recommendation for Dr. Stefano Foresti."