To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science Appoints Joe Schurman to its Advisory Board

November 22, 2019

To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science Appoints Joe Schurman to its Advisory Board

Schurman Will Advise The Organization on Artificial Intelligence Initiatives

SAN DIEGO (November 22, 2019) – To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA) today announced the appointment of Joe Schurman to its advisory board.



With 25 years of experience, Schurman will provide thought leadership in Cloud-Native Product Engineering Services to focus the company’s strategy and execution of artificial intelligence for its digital product initiatives, including S.C.O.U.T. and The V.A.U.L.T.



The V.A.U.L.T, an acronym for Virtual Analytic UAP Learning Tool, is one of TTSA’s cornerstone programs that will function as the world’s most comprehensive intelligence tool for collecting, analyzing, reporting and establishing data authenticity for unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and other subject matter. The V.A.U.L.T.’s mission is to discover signatures and patterns that could shed insight on anomalous advanced technology and capabilities worldwide.



Schurman’s extensive expertise will significantly advance The V.A.U.L.T.’s development and deployment by driving the adoption of new and innovative cloud-based capabilities to leverage the power of AI’s increased computing performance for data analysis. The ability to process and analyze vast volumes of wide-ranging datasets through machine learning, cognitive services, and intelligent analytics are closely tied to TTSA’s overarching scientific and business goals.



"I am honored to join the To The Stars Academy team as an independent advisor," said Schurman. "The organization’s unique and differentiated approach in combination with its innovations in cloud, data and analytics, and AI capabilities through the V.A.U.L.T., represents an incredible opportunity. Our shared objective includes the removal of the noise and stigma typically associated with the topic of UAPs by establishing a truly authentic and reliable data and analytics platform, including the ability to detect fake media. Based on these capabilities, we will be able to discover the meaning and motive by finding correlations and relationships to past and corresponding events with the use of predictive analytics. This project and its outcomes will be game-changing, producing findings applicable for research and development across multiple industries."



Prior to joining the TTSA advisory board, Schurman’s advisory efforts have been directed towards industry-leading, global, and public sector organizations through PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Slalom, Microsoft Research, Accenture, IBM and Hewlett Packard. He served nearly a decade at Microsoft within the company’s Research Communications Incubation Center, creating enterprise communications software and services. He spent the past several years focusing on agile software engineering, cloud-native product and platform engineering services including AI (machine learning, cognitive services, deep learning, and RPA), microservices, data and analytics, dataops, and devsecops services across multiple cloud vendor platforms from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Open Source solutions.



"Joe’s extraordinary depth of knowledge and expertise will make it possible for TTSA to provide the world’s most comprehensive, reliable and authoritative repository of UAP information," said TTSA National Policy Advisor Chris Mellon. "This is accomplished in part by using AI to identify and filter manipulated data, similar to how AI can be trained to recognize cancer cells. This vital capability will run in real time, helping to eliminate false positives when TTSA's S.C.O.U.T. app notifies users of UAP sightings found in close proximity to their location. Those users in turn will be able to collect data from different angles and locations, helping to clarify the size, location and appearance of unidentified objects. These are unique capabilities TTSA simply wouldn’t be able to provide without Joe’s knowledge, leadership and dedication."



In his current role as a Partner at PwC, a multinational professional services network and one of the "Big Four" auditors ranked as the second largest professional services firm in the world, Schurman leads cloud product engineering services within the Health Industry Advisory organization, providing technology thought leadership, strategy and product engineering to leading healthcare providers, pharmaceutical and life sciences and insurance providers. He has helped these organizations leverage the power of technology to solve complex business outcomes including genomics, rare disease research, population health, patient experience and consumerism, and connected health initiatives.



Within the U.S. Public Sector, Schurman has also provided software engineering services for several agencies including NASA, the White Sands Missile Testing Facility (WSTF) and Johnson Space Center (JSC).

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