Dean William Gibbons Ph.D.

HASS Dean, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Dr. Gibbons is a leading music scholar whose wide-ranging research explores the intersections of the arts, humanities, and technology in contemporary culture with a focus on music in video games.

Prior to joining RPI, Gibbons served as Dean of The Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, one of the oldest and largest schools of music in the Northeast. At Crane, Gibbons directed the creation and revision of innovative new curricula, developed partnerships with industry leaders, and successfully acted as lead fundraiser for the school.

In addition to dozens of books, articles, and chapters, Gibbons also co-edited the recent Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound (Oxford, 2024) as well as the essay collections Music in Video Games (Routledge, 2014) and Music in the Role-Playing Game (Routledge, 2020). His book Unlimited Replays: Video Games and Classical Music (Oxford, 2018) explores the relationship between games and the arts from the early arcade to the contemporary concert hall. 

A new co-edited volume with Brepols press, Global Histories of Video Game Music Technology (expected publication 2025), promises to break new ground by de-centering North America and highlighting previously unexplored game history, arts, and technology from many countries around the world. In high demand as a public speaker, Gibbons regularly delivers invited lectures, keynotes, and pre-concert talks at universities, conferences, and concert venues across the United States and Europe. 

Before SUNY Potsdam, Gibbons served as Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Texas Christian University, where he oversaw undergraduate and graduate programs in art, dance, design, fashion, music, and theater, and directed an interdisciplinary program in arts leadership and entrepreneurship. 

Gibbons holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a B.A. in Music from Emory & Henry College.

Ana Bendimez, P’08, P’13 

Charles (Chuck) Burdick ’66, BS PSYCHOLOGY

Principal Analyst, ITA International

Chuck has spent most of his career in military simulation and simulators in companies such as Lockheed Martin. His particular interest is the design of simulation-supported war games with communication networks carrying explicit sensor information leading to “decision-making under uncertainty.” His other pursuit is the use of network digital twins to reduce successful cyber-attacks.

Mr. Burdick holds a BA in Psychology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he had courses that generated enough data to require statistics and access to the computer in FORTRAN. He earned an MSA in Operations Research from George Washington University in 1973.

Patrick Celentano ’17

Engineering Lead, Enterprise Team, Gecko Robotics

Patrick graduated from RPI in 2017 and began his career at Sonos, Inc., where he worked as a desktop and mobile app developer.  While at Sonos, Patrick worked primarily on overhauling Sonos' speaker setup experience, earning a patent and writing two Sonos tech blogs.  In 2022, he joined the industrial inspections startup Gecko Robotics—first as a software engineer and later as the Enterprise team lead.  In his work, he is responsible for developing data visualization programs for clients ranging from paper mills to the U.S. government.

Outside of work, Patrick spends most of his time working on creative projects and enjoying concerts in his adopted home in Boston.

Rona Gollob ’77, ME ’80

Owner, Metallizing Service Company

Ms. Gollob worked in the nuclear industry for over fifteen years and has since retired. She is part owner (along with her ex-husband, David Gollob ’78) of the Metallizing Service Company, which is located in West Hartford, CT. The company develops protective coatings for commercial, aerospace, and industrial applications. 

After her “retirement”, Ms. Gollob became very involved in Jewish philanthropy and other civic organizations. She also travels around the world with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Ms. Gollob is a member of The Emanuel Synagogue board of trustees, co-chair of the Israel and Overseas Allocation Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, and is also on the executive committee of Voices of Hope. 

In 2015, she was recognized with the Vision Award in Jewish Heritage from the Charter Oak Cultural Center. Ms. Gollob has been a reader for Charter Oak Cultural Center Jewish Plays Selection Committee for over 5 years.  Also, in 2017, she received the YWCA Hartford Region Creating Opportunities Leadership Award.  She gives to the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, CT Science Center, and to multiple Jewish organizations.

Ms. Gollob is the co-chair of Children’s Reading Partners of Greater Hartford and has volunteered for almost twenty-five years with the organization. She mainly worked at Thirman Milner School and now SAND School in Hartford’s North End. She was quoted as saying, “I have always considered it a privilege to work with two or three children each year. I have enjoyed seeing them improve their reading skills."

Joel Leider, MS ’74, MBA

Retired Co-Founder and CEO of Winchester Systems

From 1981 to 2021 Mr. Leider was an entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Winchester Systems, a manufacturer of data storage systems. The company’s products were utilized in several thousand mission-critical applications in major business and government organizations. Notably, its “purpose-built” military products for US surveillance aircraft deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Gulf Wars contributed to saving American lives. Products from Winchester Systems included Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS), and Storage Area Network (SAN) configurations, including hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state disk drives (SSDs).

Customers included Partners Healthcare, GE, Dana Farber, Johns Hopkins, and all branches of the US Armed Services plus NASA, JPL, WPAFB, USPS, Argonne and Fermi Labs as well as defense contractors Northrop, Rockwell, Lockheed, Boeing, and Wyle.

From 1974 to 1981, Mr. Leider led a team of engineers at Teradyne that designed and built a new software system that tested IC electronics used in many generations of computers, cars, phones, plus industrial and military equipment. This system shipped for over 15 years and was deployed for up to 25 years at most of the major semiconductor manufacturers worldwide.

Mr. Leider holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from New York University, and an MBA from Boston University. He holds certificates in Software Engineering Management from Harvard University, and Management of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jean Leider, MBA

Retired Certified Internal Auditor

Jean Leider is a retired Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS). She spent 39 years in the financial services industry, focusing on regulatory compliance, risk management, policies and procedures, operations, and electronic funds transfers for Bank of America (previously Bank of Boston and Fleet Bank), community banks, and credit unions throughout New England.

Ms. Leider provides volunteer services for Alpha Xi Delta National Fraternity’s local chapters’ housing. She has served as a Director on the Boards of the Alpha Xi Delta Foundation and the Alpha Xi Delta National Housing Corporation. She also supports many service projects as a member of Rotary International and The Andona Society (both non-profit organizations in Andover, MA).  

Since 2017 Ms. Leider has managed the recordkeeping and payroll services for her son’s masonry business. Ms. Leider holds an MBA from Babson College and a B.A. from the University of Iowa.

Raul Lopez-Palm, MS ’77, P ’08, P ’13

Owner, Patterson-Palm Builders Hardware

A former member of the Rensselaer Alumni Association Board of Trustees. Raul is the President and Director of Patterson-Palm Builders Hardware Inc. and Citilock Inc.  Raul’s career started developing mathematical models for transportation in the Paper Industry, subsequently, he founded and ran a manufacturing company of CP/M-based microcomputers and also developed their application software. An Entrepreneur for over thirty years, he has been involved in trading agricultural commodities, hardwood doors, and stain glass manufacturing, and import/export of building materials.  He also participated financially and in logistics with a number of start-ups.  He currently runs and owns a Contract Hardware company specializing in large mix-used projects with applications in frames, doors, hardware, and controlled openings (electronics).  He offers the group seasoned business experience, some from the school of hard knocks; also advise developing strategies for professional and technical collaborations.