Michael Gealt was Central Michigan University’s executive vice president and provost, as well a professor of biology, from 2013, through June 2019.

At the time he stepped down, Gealt was recognized as a champion of student success, teaching excellence and nationally recognized research. Several significant university accomplishments occurred while Gealt was provost, including the update of the university’s Advancing Excellence strategic plan, the reorganization of the Academic Division and the reclassification of the university as a Carnegie R2 research institution.

Prior to joining Central Michigan, Gealt served as dean of the College of Science and professor of biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR). Prior to UALR, he was dean of Engineering, Mathematics, and Science at Purdue University Calumet (now Purdue University Northwest) and, before that, he held faculty and administrative positions at Drexel University, including director of the School of Environmental Science, Engineering, and Policy.

Gealt received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Temple University and his doctorate in microbiology from Rutgers University. He is a fellow of both the American Academy for Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Currently serving as chair of CST’s Board of Visitors, in 2023 Gealt established the Gealt Family Scholarship to support undergraduate students in the college.

Egi Rama is graduating with a bachelor’s in computer science. Since 2023, Rama has been a research assistant with the Temple Human- Computer Interaction Lab, publishing research and contributing to projects at the intersection of technology and user experience.

Throughout her time at Temple University, Rama has built an impressive portfolio of technical and leadership experience. She served as vice president and then president of the Temple chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery-Women, where she helped foster community, mentorship and professional development opportunities for fellow students. She helped organize OwlHacks, Temple’s annual, student-organized 30-hour hackathon, where hundreds of students collaborate to build innovative tech projects, ranging from apps to hardware.

A member of the Honors Program, Rama complemented her research experience with global study, spending two semesters at Temple University Japan. Serving as a CST Ambassador, Rama represented the college and supported outreach and engagement efforts to prospective students. She also served as a CST Peer Leader for both the first-year and transfer seminars.

Rama is currently a JPMorganChase software engineer intern, following summer internships in both 2024 and 2025. Her work reflects a strong foundation in software development, collaboration and real-world problem solving. After graduation, she will take on a full-time role as a software engineer with JPMorganChase in New York City.

Mike Remaker is a technology executive and chief technology officer with deep experience leading product, data and engineering organizations across healthcare and financial technology.

He has built and scaled global teams, modernized cloud-native platforms, and driven digital transformation initiatives that support rapid growth and international expansion.

Remaker has led the design and rollout of global payment and participant engagement platforms, enabling secure, compliant transactions across multiple regions while navigating complex regulatory, currency, and integration challenges. He has held leadership and advisory roles with Mural Health, G2 Startup Advisors, Spring EQ and Relay Network.

Known for aligning technology strategy with business outcomes, he has delivered high-impact solutions in clinical trials, digital lending, and data-driven platforms. He is also passionate about mentoring and developing technologists, helping engineers and leaders grow into highperforming teams.

Remaker earned his bachelor’s in information science and technology and graduated magna cum laude in 2006. He joined the CST Alumni Board in 2018, then served as Board treasurer from 2020 to 2022. He became Board president in 2022. He has also been a mentor to severalCST students through the Alumni Board’s Owl to Owl Mentor Program.

Anita Raja is a professor of computer science at Hunter College and a member of the doctoral faculty at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Named one of Crain’s New York “Notable Women in Tech,” she is a leader in both research and mentorship, shaping the next generation of innovators in artificial intelligence.

After earning a bachelor of science in computer science, with a minor in mathematics, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Temple University, Raja earned a master’s and PhD in computer science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1998 and 2003, respectively.

Raja directs the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research (DAIR) Lab, where her work advances artificial intelligence through the study of decentralized reasoning and decision-making in complex, resource-constrained environments.

Her research has been supported by major federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as well as Google.

Raja’s contributions have earned national recognition, including a National Institutes of Health Decoding Maternal Morbidity Challenge prize, best paper awards and honors from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, where she also served on the group’s Executive Council.

Caroline Merheb is graduating with a doctoral degree in geoscience. Merheb’s research focus is agrivoltaics, assessing the extent of interdependence between combining solar energy and crop production. Her work spans multiple scales, from evaluating the potential of agrivoltaics to enhance the food-water-energy-land nexus in low-income urban communities in the U.S. to investigating its benefits for urban microclimates and crop production in the context of climate change.

In 2024, Merheb won the Agrivoltaics Student Design Competition as part of the Agrivoltaics World Conference. Her design, which targeted urban settings, aimed at enhancing access to fresh food produce in low-income areas, reducing surface temperatures and urban heat islands, and increasing green spaces and improving the aesthetics of artificially abundant regions.

Merheb is lead author of “Synergies and trade-offs of multi-use solar landscapes,” published in the influential journal “Nature Sustainability.” Combing through years of data from previous agrivoltaics/solar photovoltaics research, Merheb searched for trends, such as increases in energy/food productivity; highlighted the benefits agrivoltaics have over separate systems for solar and food production, particularly in urban and small-scale farming contexts; and identified challenges to collocation scenarios and what could be done to improve the integration of these systems.

Supported by a Canada Impact+Reseach Award that recognizes outstanding international researchers, Merheb will go to the University of Calgary as a postdoctoral fellow. She will expand her work in agrivoltaics by developing a decision-support tool for farmers, solar developers and policymakers to improve system design and siting.

Mike Remaker is a technology executive and chief technology officer with deep experience leading product, data and engineering organizations across healthcare and financial technology.

He has built and scaled global teams, modernized cloud-native platforms, and driven digital transformation initiatives that support rapid growth and international expansion.

Remaker has led the design and rollout of global payment and participant engagement platforms, enabling secure, compliant transactions across multiple regions while navigating complex regulatory, currency, and integration challenges. He has held leadership and advisory roles with Mural Health, G2 Startup Advisors, Spring EQ and Relay Network. Known for aligning technology strategy with business outcomes, he has delivered high-impact solutions in clinical trials, digital lending, and data-driven platforms. He is also passionate about mentoring and developing technologists, helping engineers and leaders grow into high performing teams.

Remaker earned his bachelor’s in information science and technology and graduated magna cum laude in 2006. He joined the CST Alumni Board in 2018, then served as Board treasurer from 2020 to 2022. He became Board president in 2022. He has also been a mentor to several CST students through the Alumni Board’s Owl to Owl Mentor Program.