Mimi Afshar Professor Mimi Afshar is the Director of the NCCU Intellectual Property (IP) Clinic, and the supervising patent and trademark attorney for the IP Clinic. Prof. Afshar brings almost 18 years of combined private-practice and outside counsel experience to NCCU’s Intellectual Property department, including experience as a chemical engineer in the pharmaceutical industry. She possesses diverse expertise in the areas of intellectual property, patents, trademarks, and licensing. Professor Afshar has represented technology & pharmaceutical clients in intellectual property counseling and patent prosecution. She has also provided patent counseling and prosecution expertise to independent inventors. Her pro bono representation includes assisting entrepreneurs with patent and trademark matters. Prof. Afshar received her BS Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, CA. Prof. Afshar received her LLM in Law and Technology from the University of California at Berkeley Law School. She is a Registered US Patent Attorney, and is admitted to the USPTO Patent Bar. She is admitted to the California State Bar, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the United States District Court-Southern District of California.
Mark Atkinson Is a second career attorney. Duke undergrad ’86. 4 years in US Navy. 25 years in consulting. NCCU JD ’20. I have a short attention span so I like working with new ideas, entrepreneurs and solving problems. Married with 4 adult kids.
Dennis Barnes Dennis Barnes is a Managing Director at Dovetail Consulting Group. He has over 20 years of experience serving life sciences companies both as an external resource evaluating and testing the effectiveness of compliance programs, and as an internal member of the senior management team charged with building and implementing compliance programs, leading risk management initiatives, and serving as an independent voice reporting directly to Boards of Directors. Dennis served as the Vice President of Global Governance, Risk & Compliance at Mayne Pharma where he was responsible for building and implementing the US Healthcare Compliance Program, and developing and executing a global risk management program, among other responsibilities. Before joining Mayne Pharma, Dennis served as Vice President, Global Compliance Officer for PAREXEL International Inc., the second largest clinical research organization (CRO) in the world, where he focused on partnering with key global pharmaceutical clients to support their compliance with important elements of their Corporate Integrity Agreements and Deferred Prosecution Agreements. Dennis managed three teams while at PAREXEL, including a US Spend Reporting Team, a US Third Party Due Diligence Team and a Global Third-Party Due Diligence Team located in Hyderabad, India. Dennis earned a BA in Economics from Bucknell University, a JD from the University of Notre Dame School of Law, and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, McCombs Graduate School of Business. Dennis is also a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, Dennis earned the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) designation and the Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) designation from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and has begun helping his clients work toward privacy solutions within their compliance programs.
Roderick Brown Mr. Brown formerly served as LNLP Interim Head of UK Legal and is currently LNLP NA Senior Counsel and Director. He previously served as Senior Corporate Counsel at HCL America, Inc., and Senior Counsel at Murphy Wesley & Harlan (formerly Gonzalez, Saggio, and Harlan), where his focus areas were, and still remain, supporting and negotiating complex customer and procurement commercial transactions, intellectual property, product development, alliances and channel partnering, software and data licensing, cloud computing, Software as a Service, and mergers and acquisitions. He also served as Vice President of Business Development and General Counsel for FDR Inc., a boutique government contracting organization that focused on technical and specialized military training. Mr. Brown is a graduate of North Carolina Central University School of Law. He enjoys traveling, outdoor activities, research, sports, and team enhancing activities.
Leon T. Cain II Leon T. Cain II is a registered patent attorney whose practice includes patent preparation and prosecution before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Mr. Cain has extensive experience in all aspects of patent prosecution including U.S. and international patent applications, USPTO appeals, interviews, and Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) practice. Prior to joining Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions as Associate General Counsel, Mr. Cain was a patent associate at Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner which is a large mid-west intellectual property law firm, a Virginia/D.C. based patent boutique law firm, as well as a Research Triangle Park, NC based patent boutique law firm where he prosecuted patent applications for a variety of international clients in both large corporations and start-ups. Mr. Cain also worked as a primary patent examiner for the USPTO in Art Unit 2617. There, he examined patent applications in the areas of computer graphics, image processing, three-dimensional (3D) rendering, virtual gaming, and medical imaging devices. Mr. Cain serves as past chair and nominations committee chair for the North Carolina Bar Association Intellectual Property Law Section. He received his B.S. degree, cum laude, in Computer Science from South Carolina State University and his J.D. degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law.
Ashley Campbell Ashley Campbell is the CEO of Legal Aid of North Carolina. She represents the Tenth Judicial District (Wake County) on the North Carolina State Bar Council where she serves on the Access to Justice Standing Committee. She is a member of the Chief Justice’s Equal Access to Justice Commission and is the past president of the Wake County Bar Association and Tenth Judicial District Bar. Prior to moving to Legal Aid, Ashley was a clinical professor at Campbell Law School where she directed the Blanchard Community Law Clinic and taught trial advocacy. Ashley has been rated as a Best Lawyer in America in Commercial Litigation for many years. She earned both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Maryam Casbarro Maryam Casbarro, Product Counsel for Uber, advises on membership issues and new product and business line launches. Her duties include conducting risk assessments for highly regulated items and product lines, coordinating global legal review of new initiatives, and helping the delivery business navigate complex regulatory issues. She also helps the business with strategies and playbooks during the execution of projects. Maryam started her career as a Securities and White-Collar litigator, before transitioning to cybersecurity and privacy at a large firm. She counseled and advised on cybersecurity best practices, drafted incident response plans, oversaw legal response after a breach had occurred, and assisted clients with privacy litigation strategies and government investigations and regulatory compliance.
Rachel Cash is the founder and CEO of Elroi Enterprise Inc, a tech startup focused on consumer and enterprise data privacy management. Elroi believe privacy is a right. To achieve our mission, Elroi is building a data economy where consumer have self sovereignty and Enterprise reach strategic compliance with over 130 privacy regulations.
attorney licensed in Michigan and specializing in data privacy. With over 10 years of business operation leadership and project management experience, Rachel has lead initiatives in regulatory compliance, technology development, STEM education, and government contracting. As one of the few black women-owned Technology Company Founder, Rachel is committed to innovation and bringing additional minorities into the technology and legal fields. Rachel holds a B.A. in English from the University of Memphis and a Juris Doctorates from North Carolina Central University School of Law.
Steven Cava Steven is an attorney and pharmacy consultant specializing in pharmacy operations, contract negotiation, compliance, and strategic development. Steven has twenty years of experience in pharmacy, including as director of operations for a high-volume pharmacy. Desiring to help pharmacists practice at the top of their license and improve access to quality care, Steven pursued a legal education, graduating from NCCU Law in 2018. Steven now serves a dual role for PharmaComplete Consulting Services as General Counsel and as a pharmacy consultant. In addition to working directly with pharmacies, Steven provides industry education on behalf of pharmacy vendors and associations and advocates for public policy initiatives to expand the scope and quality of pharmacy practice. Steven completed his undergraduate studies at Campbell University, earned his Juris Doctor from the North Carolina Central University School of Law, and is a member of the D.C. Bar.
Alysia Dagadu Alysia Dagadu has been with Meta Platform’s Reality Labs as AGC for 3 years. Alysia leads a team of lawyers in technology development of Meta’s innovative AR/VR products and peripherals. Prior to joining Meta, Alysia served as senior corporate counsel at Cisco Systems, Inc. supporting global supply chain operations and logistics. Alysia is a 2000 graduate from NCCU’s School of Law.
Ezekiel Dixon-Román Ezekiel Dixon-Román is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. His research seeks to make cultural and critical theoretical interventions toward rethinking and reconceptualizing the technologies and practices of quantification as mediums and agencies of systems of sociopolitical relations whereby race and other assemblages of difference are byproducts. He is the author of Inheriting Possibility: Social Reproduction & Quantification in Education (2017, University of Minnesota Press); recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association. He also co-edited Thinking Comprehensively About Education: Spaces of Educative Possibility and Their Implications for Public Policy (2012, Routledge) as well as co-guest edited “Alternative Ontologies of Number: Rethinking the Quantitative in Computational Culture” (2016, Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies), “The computational turn in education research: Critical and creative perspectives on the digital data deluge” (2017, Research in Education), “Control Societies @30: Technopolitical Forces and Ontologies of Difference” (2020, Social Text Online), and most recently “Dialogues on Recursive Colonialism, Speculative Computation, and the Techno-Social” (2021, e-flux journal). He is currently working on a book project that examines the haunting formations of the transparent subject in algorithmic governance and the potential for transformative technopolitical systems.
April Dawson is the Associate Dean of Technology and Innovation and Professor of Law at North Carolina Central University School of Law. She received her undergraduate degree in computer science and was a computer programmer before attending law school at Howard University School of Law. After law school, she joined the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice through its Attorney General’s Honors Program. While at the Department of Justice, she argued cases before the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits. After two years at DOJ, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Dawson has been a law professor at NCCU Law for more than 15 years. She has taught several courses, including Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and Torts. She currently teaches in the area of law and technology, including courses on AI, blockchain, and data science. She was recognized as a 2022 ABA Women of Legal Tech and was the 2021 recipient of the AALS Technology, Law and Legal Education Section Award.
Sonja Ebron Sonja Ebron is a PhD electrical engineer and former college professor with a background in utilities and artificial intelligence. She has represented herself in court numerous times. As CEO at Courtroom5, Sonja has made it her personal mission to empower people to represent themselves effectively in court. She serves on the board of Responsive Law, a national advocacy organization focused on the rights of legal consumers, and on the Leaders Council of the Legal Services Corporation, the nation’s primary funding source for legal aid programs. She is a founding member of the Justice Technology Association, a trade organization for direct-to-consumer legal tech companies and nonprofits. Sonja is a native of Durham and lives in the suburbs with her wife and Courtroom5 co-founder Debra Slone.
Tristan Fuierer has more than fifteen years of experience in the chemical, materials science, biotechnology, and the semiconductor manufacturing arts. Dr. Fuierer focuses her practice on patent preparation, prosecution, opinion work, and patent portfolio management, and has represented a number of large corporations, universities, and start-up companies. Dr. Fuierer also has significant experience with international patent prosecution. Prior to law school, Dr. Fuierer taught Chemistry for four years at Western Carolina University in North Carolina, teaching everything from freshman General Chemistry to Physical Chemistry to graduate level classes. She is presently an adjunct professor of law at the UNC School of Law, co-teaching a patent preparation and prosecution course, and serves on the Board of the UNC School of Law Alumni Association.
JiNan Glasgow George JiNan Glasgow George has built her career from engineering to patent law and investment by transforming ideas into assets and connecting innovators to the resources they need to make positive impact. She believes that everyone has the power to create – and her work globally has focused on transforming ideas into reality and creating positive commercial impact from them. Her recent book The IP Miracle: How to Transform Ideas into Assets That Multiply Your Business is a best seller in its categories on Amazon. A Patent Attorney and former Patent Examiner with the US Patent & Trademark Office, JiNan is an IP practitioner with experience across a wide range of technology fields, serving clients in the US and internationally. She is a registered patent attorney with the North Carolina Bar and the USPTO; she is the founding partner of Neo IP in Durham, NC, USA (www.neoipassets.com). She has worked with clients doing business or investing in the US, Canada, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Europe, India, Brazil, Jordan, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya for strategic patent analysis and the development of intellectual property rights including patents, trademarks, and copyrights for licensing and commercialization globally. JiNan is the CEO and co-founder of.Patent Forecast®, a business intelligence SaaS company that provides insights for investors and executives, serial entrepreneurs and innovators – giving vision ahead of market data using patent data and AI (www.patentforecast.com). Her educational background includes degrees in engineering, law and theology from NC State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University, respectively.
Jasmine Glaspie Jasmine Glaspie is a Tax Manager at Walmart, Inc., an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, department stores, and grocery stores. In her current role, she is responsible for organizing and managing external tax audits, monitoring tax policy developments, and ensuring compliance of tax reporting requirements on behalf of Walmart. Previously, Jasmine worked as a Tax Research Analyst for a tax tech software company, where she conducted complex transactional tax analysis and maintained tax compliance by monitoring legislation and state revenue publications for sales tax updates and impositions. She is a triple alum of North Carolina Central University, having earned her Bachelor of Business Administration (2012), Master of Business Administration (2018), and Juris Doctor (2018) degrees from the illustrious institution. During her time of NCCU School of Law, she interned at the EEOC, State Farm Bank, the North Carolina General Assembly, and was a Student Attorney for the school’s Trademark Clinic. She also served on the Executive Boards of the Business Law Society and the Intellectual Property Law Society. She is licensed to practice law in New York and currently resides in the Triad area of North Carolina, where she works remotely for her organization.
Katia Gondarenko Katia Gondarenko is a business unit attorney at Intel Corporation, based in Santa Clara, U.S. She supports several software technology engineering groups. Katia concentrates on intellectual property licensing, contracts, competitive analytics and marketing matters. Before joining Intel, Katia was an M&A lawyer in New York. Katia has a J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Veronica Hayes Gromada Veronica is a litigator, legal/risk management strategist, and corporate advisor. Her 22-year career includes 17 years with global retailer, Walmart. Veronica supervised one of the largest tort litigation portfolios in the nation and led two of Walmart’s largest in-house legal sections, including a cross-functional team with nationwide and some global responsibilities for discovery—legal holds, ediscovery, data/document collection, witness interviews, corporate deposition preparation—across all single plaintiff, complex and class litigation, government investigations, civil investigative demands and subpoenas. While in-house Veronica was a member of the Information Assurance Subcommittee, and has experience working with technology, privacy, information security, and business teams, and has served on numerous special projects with data analytics professionals. Veronica also serves on the board of ALM Legal Week (formerly LegalTech.)
Cherell Harris Cherell Harris is currently a first year Associate at Smith Anderson LLP in the Technology Transactions group where she works on reviewing and drafting contracts for private and public biotechnology, AgTech and technology companies, including master services agreements, licensing agreement, SOWs. She also assists with execution of IP due diligence in M&A transactions. She completed her law school education at North Carolina Central University School of Law as a member of the evening program. She has a master’s degree in Engineering from NC A&T State University and a BS in Chemistry from Spelman College. She is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and certified Project Management Professional. As an active member of the North Carolina Bar Association, she serves as co-chair the Legal LINK subcommittee of the Young Lawyers Division, co-chair of the Communications subcommittee of both the Minorities in the Profession Committee and Intellectual Property Law Section. She had a twenty-five year career in biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing before returning to law school to pursue law as a second career.
John Hardin John Hardin is the Executive Director of the Office of Science, Technology & Innovation. He was appointed Acting Director in 2008 and Executive Director in 2009. From 2003 to 2008, he served as the office’s Deputy Director and Chief Policy Analyst. In his current role he conducts strategic planning and makes recommendations for technology-based economic development, implements technology-related economic development policy and resource allocations, supervises the staff of the N.C. Board of Science, Technology & Innovation, directs and oversees the administration of grant programs to support technology development and commercialization, and oversees strategic initiatives.
From 1998 to 2003, he served as Assistant Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs in the UNC System Office. From 1998 to 2005, he held an Adjunct Assistant Professor position in the Department of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. From 2006-2018, he was a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he taught courses on American politics, public policy, policy analysis, and science policy.
A native of Tulsa, Okla., he holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from UNC-Chapel Hill, a B.A. in economics from Baylor University, and a certificate of completion for the Leadership Decision Making program, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. He and his wife Jane live in Durham and have two daughters who are recent college graduates.
Aisha Hasan Aisha is a Partner in the Life Sciences Practice and Co-Chair of the Biotech group. She focuses her practice on the preparing and prosecuting U.S. and foreign patent applications, as well all aspects of complex freedom-to-operate and due diligence reviews and IP transactions. Aisha’s work spans a wide range of technical areas, including immunotherapies, biotechnology, small molecule pharmaceuticals, agricultural biotechnology, and diagnostic assays. Her clients include large agricultural chemical companies, pharmaceutical and biotech companies of varying size, as well as a variety of start-ups and emerging companies. Prior to entering private practice, Aisha worked as a protein chemist at Trimeris Inc. on HIV and RSV research, as well as at the National Institutes of Health’s Laboratory of Structural Biology, where she studied the structure of natural killer cell receptors. Aisha is also skilled in clinical microbiology and virology, and chemical synthesis.
Kareem Howell Kareem is an Associate General Counsel at Thomson Reuters, a multinational provider of business information services, where he supports the Corporates and Tax & Accounting Professionals businesses. Prior to Thomson Reuters, Kareem served for 10 years as the first attorney and General Counsel of Integration Point, a software company based in Charlotte. Kareem started in the practice of law as an Intellectual Property Attorney at a midwest law firm that is now Faegre Drinker. Kareem graduated from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and has a BS degree in Computer Science from Norfolk State University.
Shaquana Johnson Shaquana serves as Lead Counsel at Meta, Reality Labs working in its Research AR/VR division. Shaquana works on complex technology agreements such as joint development agreements, license agreements and sponsored research agreements to name a few. Prior to joining Meta Shaquana was a transactional attorney at a healthcare technology company and prior to that she was in the clinical research field. Shaquana is a proud graduate of Howard University and NCCU School of law. Shaquana is extremely passionate about DEI and leads Meta Reality Labs’ DEI workstream where she has implemented a first of its kind DEI initiative to be announced in late winter. Shaquana also serves as Chair of the Career Development Committee of the Raleigh Chapter of Association of Corporate Counsel. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her precious son Evan and her family.
Dana Jones Prof. Dana G. Jones, teaches Contracts, Trial Practice and Health Law and is an alumna of North Carolina Central University School of Law. She received her LL.M in Health Law Policy and Regulation from Loyola University-Chicago. Professor Jones actively practices in various areas of health law and technology including, health care policy, regulation, compliance, Medicare/Medicaid payor programs, health plan administration, FDA regulation, health care privacy/HIPAA, and licensing/credentialing. Professor Jones is a certified Mediator and Arbitrator for the American Health Lawyer’s Association. She serves on several health care boards and continues zealous advocacy for various health care initiatives.
Vedia Jones-Richardson is a partner heading the Trademark/Copyright/Transactional Practice Group at Olive and Olive, an intellectual property law firm in Durham, North Carolina, with a practice focused on consumer products, computer, communications, educational, arts, and entertainment clients. Her background includes an undergraduate degree in design, management positions in television, advertising, and software development, law practice in law firms and in-house, and several years as an adjunct professor and USPTO-certified law clinic supervisor. She draws on each of these perspectives to provide insights for solving the challenges faced by her clients. Vedia is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Howard University, admitted to practice in Washington, DC, Illinois, and North Carolina, and is certified as a North Carolina Bar Trademark Specialist. She has served in many bar leadership positions, including in the American Bar Association, as chair of the Law Practice Division and ABA Women Rainmakers, on various ABA commissions for technology and client development issues, as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and in the North Carolina Bar Association and the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys. She also has been a Fellow in the College of Law Practice Management, a founding board member of InternetBar.org, and has served on the boards of many arts and cultural organizations. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, NY, she also spent several years in Washington DC and Chicago, and now lives in the Triangle Area of North Carolina with her husband and three sons.
Ben Kastan Ben Kastan is the Associate General Counsel for Cybersecurity at the National Security Agency (NSA). As such, he is the senior legal adviser to NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate (CSD) and leads the NSA Office of General Couns
Eva Almirantearena is Vice President, Associate General Counsel, Antitrust and Commercial Litigation at Intel Corporation. Eva has been with Intel since 2004, mainly in the Litigation Group, handling a wide variety of matters, including antitrust litigation and investigations, commercial litigation and misappropriation of confidential information and trade secrets. Eva is Intel Legal’s Diversity and Inclusion Leader, a member of Intel Legal’s Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee and leads Intel Legal’s Outside Counsel Diversity & Inclusion Program team. She is also co-chair of Intel Legal’s Pro Bono Committee. Prior to joining Intel, Eva was an antitrust partner at Howrey in Northern California and, before that, was a trial attorney at the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.