Lori Weiss
Director of Strategy, Operations and External Relations
Lori Weiss is a native of Los Angeles, California and graduated from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1979 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Ms. Weiss continued her education at Pepperdine University where she graduated as a Master of Business Administration in 1992.
Ms. Weiss has been involved in the high-technology industry since 1985 when she joined Apple Computer’s Advanced Technology Group (ATG) working with Dr. Alan C. Kay, a father of the personal computer and inventor of the now pervasive graphical user interface (GUI). For over a decade, Ms. Weiss served as Program Manager for several educational research projects at Apple Computer including the Vivarium Program.
From 1993-1996, Ms. Weiss was also the business manager for Apple’s East/West Consortium, part of Apple’ Computer’s Authoring Tools Group. This consortium began with response to a request for proposals from DARPA’s Technology Reinvestment Program (TRP). The East/West Consortium included Apple Computer, two publishers, including Houghton Mifflin, and four universities: Stanford University, University of Colorado, Boulder, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The goal of the consortium was to develop next generation authoring tools to empower non-programmers to develop interactive content, training and educational software.
In 1996 Ms. Weiss joined Walt Disney Imagineering’s Research and Development group as Director of Business Management. At Disney she interfaced between R&D and other organizations within the Walt Disney Company to transition projects out of R&D and into Disney Stores, Theme Parks and Disney’s animation division. Ms. Weiss went on to work with two strategic consulting firms in marketing and program development and served as Vice President of Program Development for Technology Transfer Institute’s Vanguard Program. Getting back to her passion for education and research and development, in 2003 Ms. Weiss joined the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.
As a member of the senior management team, Lori Weiss is ICT’s Director of Strategy, Operations and External Relations. Ms. Weiss and her husband, Bill, have two children (Drew and Erin) and live in Playa del Rey, CA.