Vanderbilt engineering alumni Krista M. Donaldson, Bruce R. Evans and Charles I. Plosser will be inducted into the School of Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni at the April 10 Engineering Celebration Dinner.
The School of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award recognizes distinguished achievement, significant service and excellent character.
“The newest members of the Academy of Distinguished Alumni have left their marks on our world,” said Dean Philippe Fauchet.
“Krista Donaldson is a young CEO focused on engineering and social entrepreneurship in less industrialized economies. Bruce Evans has built an impressive career as a venture capitalist and he is a tireless champion of Vanderbilt University. Charles Plosser, a widely-acclaimed academic macroeconomist, serves as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia,” he said.
“We are honoring a very special and elite group of individuals. Their achievements are truly worthy of our recognition,” Fauchet said.
Krista M. Donaldson has driven innovation in product design, engineering and international development for more than 15 years. As the CEO of D-Rev — a nonprofit product development company — she has led the release of Brilliance, a revolutionary technology treating neonatal jaundice, and the ReMotion prosthetic knee. Her leadership has won Krista acclaim as a Silicon Valley Business Journal “40 Under 40” honoree and a TEDx and Clinton Global Initiative speaker.
After graduating magna cum laude from Vanderbilt, Bruce R. Evans attended the Harvard Business School. Following his graduation, he joined Summit Partners, a Boston-based growth equity and venture capital firm, becoming a partner in 1991. In 1999 he joined the firm’s board of directors and was elected chair in 2011. During his successful 28-year venture capital career, he has served on the boards of 30 companies and has been named to Forbes magazine’s annual “Midas List” of the best technology investors four times.
In 2006, Charles I. Plosser became the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s 10th president and chief executive officer. Before coming to Philadelphia, he taught at the University of Rochester and directed the Bradley Policy Research Center at Rochester’s William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, where he served as dean from 1993 to 2003. In addition to serving as a consultant to numerous corporations, he has lectured to academic and business audiences worldwide on topics ranging from management education to economic and public policy issues.
Recipients of this award, first given in 1969, must have attended or graduated from the School of Engineering. The honorees are chosen by an awards committee which comprises the dean of the School of Engineering, alumni representatives and faculty members in the School of Engineering.
Krista M. Donaldson, BE’95, Mechanical Engineering, San Francisco, California
Krista Donaldson, Ph.D., has driven innovation in product design, engineering, and international development for more than 15 years. As D-Rev’s CEO, Krista’s has led the release of Brilliance, a revolutionary technology treating neonatal jaundice, and the ReMotion prosthetic knee. Her leadership has won Krista acclaim as a Silicon Valley Business Journal “40 Under 40” honoree and a TEDx and Clinton Global Initiative speaker. She was recently named among Fast Company’s Co.Design “50 People Shaping the Future of Design” and the “Public Interest Design 100.” She is a 2010 Rainer Arnhold Fellow and a 2011 Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow.
Prior to D-Rev, Krista served as a diplomacy fellow in the U.S. Department of State’s American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), where she guided economic policy and the reconstruction of Iraq’s electricity sector. Her work there earned recognition for its impact on bilateral relations. From 1998 to 2001, she worked as a design engineer and researcher with KickStart International (formerly ApproTEC) in Nairobi, Kenya. She also has worked at the product design firm IDEO.
A native of Nova Scotia, Krista holds a B.E. in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University as well as a M.S.E (product design), M.S.M.E. and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her doctoral work was among the first to focus on engineering and social entrepreneurship in less industrialized economies. Krista has taught at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya and South Africa’s University of Cape Town. She is currently a lecturer at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University.
Bruce R. Evans, BE’81, Mechanical Engineering, Boston, Massachusetts
Bruce R. Evans graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington, West Virginia and attended Vanderbilt as a recipient of the Stewart Honor Scholarship in Engineering—a scholarship established by one of Vanderbilt’s generous benefactors, the James Stewart family. Evans graduated magna cum laude with a B.E. in mechanical engineering and economics in 1981 and then relocated to Louisville to sell mainframe computers for IBM. After three years as a computer salesman, he moved to Boston to attend the Harvard Business School. Evans graduated with an MBA in 1986 and married his business school classmate, Bridgitt Bertram Evans, a year later.
Upon his 1986 graduation from Harvard, Evans joined Summit Partners, a Boston-based growth equity and venture capital firm that has raised nearly $15 billion in capital since its inception. In 1991, after focusing on venture capital investing in technology and health care service companies during the early part of his career, Evans was named a partner in the firm. In 1999, he co-led a successful leveraged buyout of Summit Partners from its founders and joined the firm’s executive committee and board of directors. In 2011, he stepped down from the executive committee and in 2012 was elected chair of the board of directors.
During his successful 28-year venture capital career, Evans has served on the boards of 30 companies, including 12 public companies, and has been named to Forbes magazine’s annual “Midas List” of the best technology investors four times. He is currently a director of FleetCor Technologies, an Atlanta-based public company that provides credit cards and other services to the transportation industry. Evans is also a director of several private technology companies and is a member of the National Venture Capital Association’s board of directors.
Since his 1981 graduation, Evans has supported Vanderbilt in a variety of ways. He has been a member of the university’s Board of Trust since 2009 and the investment committee since 1998, for which he currently serves as chairman. He also chaired the fundraising efforts for the Class of 1981’s 25th Reunion. His family established the Bruce and Bridgitt Evans, Class of 1981, Honor Scholarship. Evans and his wife have four children, one currently enrolled at Bowdoin College and three currently enrolled at Vanderbilt.
Charles I. Plosser, BE’70, Civil Engineering, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Charles I. Plosser became the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s 10th president and chief executive officer on August 1, 2006. Before coming to Philadelphia, he was the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Rochester and director of the Bradley Policy Research Center at Rochester’s William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, where he served as dean from 1993 to 2003. He was also a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Rochester, a senior research associate at the Rochester Center for Economic Research in the university’s School of Arts and Science, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Plosser has lectured to academic and business audiences worldwide on topics ranging from management education to economic and public policy issues. The author of numerous academic articles and a participant in scores of professional seminars and conferences, Plosser has also served as co-editor or associate editor of three prestigious journals of economics and referee for over a dozen others. His research and teaching interests include topics on monetary and fiscal policy, long-term economic growth, and banking and financial markets, and his articles have appeared in numerous leading economic journals.
Plosser earned Ph.D. and MBA degrees from the University of Chicago, and he received a bachelor of engineering degree (cum laude with honors) from Vanderbilt University.
Over the years, Plosser has served as a consultant to numerous corporations on topics ranging from strategic planning and forecasting to portfolio and pension fund management, capital budgeting and financial analysis. He was a member of the New York State Board of Economic Advisors and has served on the board of directors of ViaHealth, Inc. and RGS Energy Group, Inc. He has also served on advisory boards of the New Enterprise Forum and the University Technology Seed Fund, LLC. In addition, he served as a director of the Graduate Management Admission Council from 1997 to 2003 and served as chair of the council from 2002 to 2003.