Get to know the panelists and moderator for Reboot Required: Stories from Repeat Career Reinventors, a break-out session at the April 1, 2026 Emerging Tech Dialogues - The Future of Work II: Shaping What’s Next!

Jason Woodward (Moderator)

Jason spends his working hours serving as AI Solutions Developer for the SC Johnson College of Business. Since his time as an undergrad at Cornell over 30 years ago, he's dedicated his career to figuring out how to bring "what's next" to mission-focused institutions. While it's always been technology related, he's transitioned between many hats and companies during that time, sometimes voluntarily, and sometimes not. In true moderator style, 

Jason would rather turn the focus back to the panelists' and the audience member's stories but he's happy to answer questions if you want to catch him after the session.

Aviana Cooper

As Assistant General Counsel at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, Aviana Cooper advises on a broad range of business and transactional matters, including IT and software licensing agreements, vendor contracts, HIPAA privacy and security, physician leases, and clinical research agreements. Her practice also includes data privacy and intellectual property, foreign influence, and conflicts of interest. Aviana is licensed to practice law in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. District Court of Maryland. She is an active leader in the legal community, serving in leadership roles for two American Bar Association Health Law Section interest groups—the Cancer Legal Advocacy Interest Group, as Vice Chair, and the Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health Interest Group, as Chair—and was named a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2024 – a nomination only granted to about 1% of attorneys in each state.

Two examples of career reboots: My career path reflects a series of pivots driven by curiosity and purpose. After my undergraduate studies, I felt drawn to teaching. I taught preschool and also worked as a long-term substitute, teaching 6th and 7th grade science for special education students. Then I took a major pivot to work for state Senator Verna Jones-Rodwell in the Maryland General Assembly.

At first, I focused solely on the Senator's Baltimore City legislation and bills. Then I transitioned into her Chief of Staff, where I managed both her office and her campaign until another career pivot led me away from politics. When I went to law school, I knew I wanted to be an attorney in the healthcare sector. I've since worked for organizations like the Maryland Department of Health, AARP, and the Vietnam Veterans of America before discovering Weill Cornell Medicine.

Will Olson

"Problem solver and technical navigator" is how Will describes his role as Hotel Applications Administrator for the SC Johnson College of Business. His career is a series of high-stakes evolutions: from supply chain purchasing for a startup to twenty years in the culinary world as a chef, entrepreneur, and brewery owner. His journey spans hospitality operations in two states and a pivotal transition into IT during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Most memorable career reboot: In 2008, after learning my restaurant was slated to close, I teamed up with colleagues to build something from scratch: a production craft brewery that eventually morphed into a full-scale brewpub. With no budget and a "do-it-ourselves" mandate, opening day was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life. But the real pivot happened behind the scenes. 

As the company’s sole technical resource, I was responsible for the entire digital nervous system—pulling cable, configuring networks, and ensuring our daily menu printing and POS systems never skipped a beat. Navigating those "wild west" years of entrepreneurship, where I had to translate complex operational needs into functional technical solutions, laid the groundwork for my transition into formal IT. It proved that whether you’re balancing a recipe or a TDX queue, the logic of problem-solving remains the same.

Carlyn Chatfield

"My super power is translating technical, engineering, and scientific jargon into engaging stories for broad audiences."--that's Carlyn Chatfield, aka IT Technical Communicator on the CIT Communications & Documentation Team. Her career is full of reinventions that began in the 1980s: freight forwarding and supply chain operations, a year at a startup radio station, then newspaper advertising followed by many higher education roles: thirty-nine years, thirteen job titles, five institutions, and four states.

Most memorable career reboot: Around 1999, our admissions office became the beta school for a new student information system whose financial aid module was still under development. I managed data exchange between the Department of Education and our financial aid office. At the time, we received both electronic and paper FAFSA records, but only the electronic ones worked in our systems. After shutting down our legacy system, we suddenly lost the ability to import federal aid data, and within a week, aid processing stopped and the phones were ringing nonstop. 

I spent about a week building an Excel workbook that replicated the federal aid calculations shown on the paper FAFSAs—essentially an IRS‑style calculator in Excel. With that tool, financial aid officers could manually resume award processing. When the vendor restored the system connection six weeks later, my deep knowledge of the federal formulas helped uncover and debug numerous calculation errors in our new student information system. That work led to a temporary Business Analyst role, including Oracle DBA training, where I translated real‑world financial aid problems into language software engineers could act on—an experience that launched my transition into IT.

Robert 'Bob' Talda

Although he's currently a CrashPlan guru, Bob Talda's official title is Systems Engineer in CIT Infrastructure at Cornell's Ithaca campus. His 28+ years at Cornell span both security and infrastructure roles, but his previous jobs led him into the worlds of aviaition, finance and insurance IT.

Surprise career reboot story: In June 2002, my spouse and I found ourselves at a crossroads. After three milestone 'Junes'—buying a house, completing a PhD, and getting married—we set a new goal: spend the next decade in the Pacific Northwest, then return to the Northeast to care for aging parents. I would also pursue a long-held ambition to pivot from IT into teaching, enrolling that fall in Cornell’s teacher education program while continuing to work. 

Over the next few years, momentum built as I balanced school and work and my spouse planned our move for June 2007. We were actively exploring jobs and housing in Portland, on track for a successful transition. Then, life intervened—we learned we were unexpectedly going to become parents. Excited and terrified, we realized we needed to pivot again, this time to be closer to family. That unplanned pivot is the one I want to focus on, because we found a way to adapt it into our lives rather than abandon everything we had built.

When is a fail, not a fail? Bob’s unplanned pivot initially seemed manageable: stay in upstate New York instead of moving west, and continue transitioning into teaching locally. But balancing full‑time work for health and housing, graduate coursework, student teaching, and a newborn quickly proved unsustainable. By fall 2006, stretched thin and out of energy, Bob made a prioritization choice—focusing on teaching students and being a parent, even though it meant failing to complete the documentation required to earn his Master’s degree in Education. 

As Bob says, "But, a failure is a failure only if one refuses to learn from it."  

Professionally, I soon realized that I was applying skills I picked up in pursuit of an education degree in my job. Two small examples: 

• Better communications with customers, who often were students of the service I was administering. 
• Writing lesson plans, used in training IT support personnel.

There were many other ways I was able to leverage the lessons in relationships and people management that are inherent to teaching.