Rotarian Dr. Helena Wisniewski is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in recognition of creating and facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life and the welfare of society. She has extensive executive and leadership experience in industry, the federal government, and academia and service on public and private boards of directors.  

She is a technological entrepreneur who has launched 12 startup companies across diverse technology areas, raised investment, built the businesses, and sold companies. She directed corporate-wide technology innovations as a Corporate Director at the Lockheed Corporation and vice president of Titan Corporation and ANSER. As founder and CEO of Aurora Biometrics, she built an international business and sold the company. While at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), she identified and directed many breakthrough advances in science, mathematics, engineering, and AI - as Manager of the Applied and Computational Mathematics Program. Before DARPA, she served at the CIA.

As Vice Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School at UAA, she led and grew the university’s research enterprise and developed a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation. She established UAA’s first technology commercialization infrastructure, dramatically increased the number of patents, created the Patent Wall of Fame, and launched its first startups. She created the Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC) to develop and transition technologies to improve crisis response capabilities in the Arctic. As its Founding Director, she led the effort that won a multi-million dollar award from the Department of Homeland Security, making ADAC the first DHS Center of Excellence in Alaska. Before UAA, she was Vice President for University Research and Enterprise Development at Stevens Institute of Technology; she tripled research revenues, launched nine startups, and sold two.

She is currently Chair, Management, Marketing, Logistics and Business Analytics Department, and a tenured Professor of Entrepreneurship and in the College of Business and Public Policy. She established the first Alaska Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors and successfully organized the CBPP Business Plan Competitions. She developed and taught the first CBPP AI course, created five certificates, and established the Business Analytics and AI Lab in collaboration with the College of Engineering.

She was recently appointed Editor of the new journal AI Education, a journal of Technology & Innovation of the National Academy of Inventors. She co-Authored the Book: Creating an Eco System for Academic Entrepreneurship. Among her awards is the Vocational Service Award from the Anchorage International Rotary Club, Paul Harris Fellow, Graduate Teacher of the Year, the 2001 Women in Technology Award for Entrepreneurship, Award of Honor in Recognition of Extraordinary Leadership, and Management from Lockheed, Special Recognition Award from DARPA, a Special Achievement Award from the CIA.  She has provided testimony on emerging technologies to a US Senate Committee and Alaska state legislators.

She earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, her MS in Mathematics from Stevens Institute of Technology, and her BA in mathematics from William Paterson University, where she is a Distinguished Alumni.