Victoria Houed

BSIE '16

Victoria Houed is an engineer turned policy entrepreneur who has dedicated her career to improving the tech policy ecosystem and government modernization. Victoria is currently the Executive Director of Ready State Labs, a do-tank dedicated to helping the U.S. federal government keep pace with rapidly advancing AI. She recently launched the Recoding America Fund and was the Director of AI Policy and Strategy in the Office of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Department of Commerce. She was previously a manager at Schmidt Futures where she funded key science and technology policy initiatives and educated relevant stakeholders on how to best advocate for their policy ideas in the legislative and executive branches.

Before joining Schmidt Futures, Victoria worked as a TechCongress congressional innovation fellow for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where she supported Pelosi during the COVID crisis on all things technology (including broadband, disinformation, antitrust and more). She started her career as a software engineer at Cards Against Humanity and founded BlackByte, a nonprofit for Black women in technology.

James Savage

BSIE '72

Jim Savage has held leadership positions in the healthcare industry throughout his career.  He started PHP of Michigan, a health care organization which attained $400 million in annual revenue while he was President.  He most recently served as Vice President with UnitedHealth Group, developing and overseeing the management of health plans throughout the Midwest. 

In 1993, Jim established the Robert E. Savage Scholarship and Fellowship to honor the engineering career of his father.  The scholarship award, which is equivalent to in-state tuition for one academic year, honors Industrial Engineering students who demonstrate high academic achievement, outstanding leadership, community service and good character.  Since the Scholarship’s inception, Jim has personally interviewed the student applicants each year, and over one hundred scholarships have been awarded to date. He has had the pleasure of maintaining ongoing relationships with many of the scholarship recipients as they navigated their careers. 

Jim has served in several community service leadership positions, including President of Burcham Hills Retirement Center for 19 years as well as President of the Greater Lansing Food Bank.  He also has served as Board Chairman of the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra and Lansing Rotary Foundation.   

Awards received include the Outstanding Industrial Engineer Award, Edwardson School of IE Student Engagement Award and Leading Age of Michigan Trustee of the Year.

Stephen Scott Grubbs, MD, FASCO

BSChE '75

Stephen Scott Grubbs, MD, FASCO, is a medical oncologist whose engineering foundation inspired pioneering innovations that transformed cancer care delivery, advanced community based clinical research and expanded equitable access to high-quality oncology care. His journey in medical innovation began in 1974 when he became the first Purdue undergraduate to join Dr. Leslie A. Geddes’ newly established biomedical engineering laboratory. The research launched a career devoted to innovation and resulted in a 1977 American Heart Journal publication establishing the optimal placement of ventricular defibrillation pads—a study that has been cited in CPR training literature for decades. Dr. Grubbs earned his MD from Thomas Jefferson Medical School completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Medical Center of Delaware, and his Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

In 1984, Dr. Grubbs founded an independent oncology and hematology practice in Newark, Delaware. Throughout the 1980s, he transformed cancer care into the region by transitioning chemotherapy and infusion therapy from the inpatient hospital setting to the outpatient environment and developing Delaware's only bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy program. He also served for 13 years as Principal Investigator of the National Cancer Institute sponsored Delaware Christiana Care Community Clinical Oncology Program, building it into one of the nation's premier community-based clinical trials programs. His leadership extended nationally through service on the NCI Director's Clinical Trials Advisory Committee, and in 2007 he received the Association of Community Cancer Centers Community Clinical Scientist Award.

Appointed to the Delaware Cancer Consortium in 2001, Dr. Grubbs designed the state's comprehensive colorectal cancer screening program and helped create a statewide system that provides access to cancer screening and treatment regardless of insurance status. The program transformed cancer outcomes in Delaware, reducing the state’s ranking in cancer mortality from first to sixteenth nationally, placing colorectal screening among the nation’s top five, and eliminating the racial disparities in colorectal cancer outcomes.

After 31 years of clinical practice, Dr. Grubbs joined the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) as Vice President of Care Delivery. During his decade of leadership, he established ASCO's Care Delivery Department and led the development of ASCO Certified™, a comprehensive patient-centered outpatient oncology certification program that now serves oncology practices throughout the United States and internationally. He also expanded oncology quality measurement initiatives to low-resource countries and launched an innovative hub-and spoke model that successfully extended cancer care to rural communities in Montana.

Over five decades, Dr. Grubbs has consistently combined clinical excellence with systems innovation to improve the quality and accessibility of cancer care—from biomedical engineering research into clinical practice, public health, and national policy. His engineering education at Purdue instilled a systems approach that has shaped his lifelong pursuit of innovative solutions to improve cancer care. He credits the unwavering support of his wife, Ellen, and their three children, the education he received at Purdue University, and the mentorship of Dr. Leslie A. Geddes for shaping his career. Above all, he considers the trust of his patients and their families to be the greatest privilege of his professional life and the enduring inspiration for his commitment to reducing the burden of cancer.