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Five Alumni Inducted into the Hall of Distinction

April 19, 2021

The 2020 inductees represent five different majors: chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. 

On April 23, five alumni of the University of Kentucky were inducted into the College of Engineering's Hall of Distinction. The induction ceremony took place via Zoom and was followed by a reception. 

These individuals comprise the 2020 class, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The induction ceremony for the 2021 class will be held in October. 

Established in 1992, the Hall of Distinction recognizes and honors those alumni who have demonstrated distinguished professional accomplishments, outstanding character and commitment to community service. This recognition serves to encourage exemplary achievements by current students and others. It is a symbol of the respect and admiration held by the UK College of Engineering for these esteemed individuals.

 

Billie Sue Chafins

Billie Sue Chafins has spent over 20 years shipping world-class consumer and enterprise software for large consumer technology companies, with over 15 years of experience building and managing teams. She is currently a vice president of software engineering in Direct to Consumer at the Walt Disney Company where she leads Web Engineering; Identity Management and Access; and Viewer Experience systems for Hulu and Disney+, products, which have 39.4 million and 94.9 million subscribers, respectively. In this role, she leads a team of nearly 300 developers across Seattle, Santa Monica, New York, London and Beijing. Chafins is also the head of Hulu’s Seattle Office, where she is responsible for the decision-making and operations of the company’s office in Seattle. 

Gordon "Stonie" Glenn

Stonie Glenn spent over 35 years transforming small but promising businesses into highly profitable, publicly traded companies. He rose through the ranks over a 25-year career at Computer Data Systems, Inc. (CDSI) and served as president and CEO for the last eight years. When the company was acquired in 1997, it had grown into a $350 million, NASDAQ-traded software, integration and outsourcing company. After CDSI, a small health care transaction processing company called SXC Health Solutions, Inc., recruited Glenn to be its chairman and CEO. Under Glenn’s leadership, the company grew to a NASDAQ-traded $1.5 billion enterprise at his retirement in 2009.

Raj K. Krishnaswamy

Raj Krishnaswamy is the director of the Innovation and Technology Center at Braskem America in Pittsburgh, a role he has held since 2013. Braskem is the largest petrochemical company in the Americas and the world's leading biopolymer producer. Krishnaswamy oversees a global team of polymer scientists and engineers located in Brazil, Germany and the U.S. He previously worked in Chevron-Phillips’ research and development group, where he focused on the company’s polyolefin business sector, and at Metabolix Inc., where he developed a new-to-the-world family of biobased and biodegradable polymers. Krishnaswamy received the Research & Technology Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Plastics Engineering in 2011. He is a co-inventor on over 40 patents and patent applications. 

Asghar "Oscar" Nosrati

While developing a reputation for excellence in managerial positions within the refinery and petrochemical construction industry, Oscar Nosrati and two friends pooled $200,000 to form an oil and gas exploration and production company named AmeriCo Energy Resources, LLC, in 1998. Today, AmeriCo Energy Resources is a multimillion-dollar E&P company operating hundreds of wells in several states in the U.S. Nosrati is one of the principals in the company and serves as executive vice president of acquisition and divestiture function. In addition, Nosrati launched Nosha Enterprises in 2008. As president and CEO of Nosha Enterprises, he managed to grow it to a multimillion-dollar commercial and residential real estate company in the Houston area. 

David J. Shippy

David Shippy served as IBM’s chief architect and technical leader in the area of high-performance microprocessor chips, which included technology for handheld devices, notebook computers, desktop computers, game machines, mainframes and supercomputers. He led the architecture team for the microprocessor technology in the Deep Blue supercomputer that was the first computer to defeat a human, Garry Kasparov, in a game of chess. Later, Shippy became the chief architect for the supercomputer on a chip technology in the Xbox/360 and PlayStation/3, which set speed records. He holds over 50 patents in the computer engineering field. Shippy is currently CEO of the Shippy Multifamily Group, which syndicates and manages a portfolio of real estate properties valued at nearly $1 billion.