Prior to joining the Sloan Foundation, Frank Mayadas spent 27 years at the IBM Corporation. He was Vice President, Research Division, Technical Plans and Controls from 1991 to 1992; Vice President, Technology and Solutions Development, Application Solutions Line of Business, from 1989 to 1991; General Manager, University and College Systems, IBM Personal Systems Line of Business, from 1988 to 1989; Secretary of IBM's Corporate Management Board and the IBM Management Committee, from 1987 to 1988; and the IBM Management Committee, from 1987 to 1988; IBM Research Division Vice President and Director, Almaden Research Center, San Jose, California from 1983 to 1987; and an IBM Research Division Director, Technical Planning and Controls, from 1981 to 1983.

At Sloan, Dr. Mayadas is involved in a number of areas: online education, globalization of industries, industry studies, and career choice in technical fields. He started the Sloan online learning program in 1993. This program (known as Anytime, Anyplace Learning) has had a profound impact in moving the academic field forward. He is the founding president of the Sloan Consortium, also known as Sloan-C (see www.sloan-c.org), the premier society for professionals engaged in online education programs. A large number of disciplines are covered by member academic institutions of the consortium, ranging across humanities, engineering, business, and social-, life- and physical- sciences. More than 1000 full programs (certificate and degree) are offered by consortium members. The Sloan-sponsored annual International ALN Conference now attracts more than 1200 attendees annually. Dr. Mayadas has been a keynote speaker at several distance education conferences and has testified before Congress on Web-based learning.

Dr. Mayadas received a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Cornell in 1965, and a B.S. from the Colorado School of Mines in 1961.

He has more than 35 published papers in Systems, Devices, and Solid State Physics, and holds several patents and awards from IBM. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the American Physical Society, and a past Director of the Society of Engineering Science. He has served as a member of the National Advisory Board for Georgia Tech, and the Advisory Board of the College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board for the College of Engineering, University of Florida, and a board member of e-Cornell.