The James H. and Carla A. Christensen Scholarship

To recognize a General Engineering student for outstanding academic merit, who are involved in the Illinois Society of General Engineers and other extracurricular activities in the Department of General Engineering and/or College of Engineering, as well as civic and volunteer activities.

Lauren M. Quebbeman

Jim Christensen received his Bachelors Degree in General Engineering in 1977. He began his career at Caterpillar Tractor Company in Peoria as a Research Engineer, but left Caterpillar in 1984 to join the Engineering and Scientific Computing group at Travenol Laboratories, now Baxter International, Inc. During the past 18 years, he has held a number of positions of increasing responsibility for application development and support as well as computing infrastructure, including systems architecture, network engineering, desktop services, help desk support, and data center operations. Currently he holds the position of Director of Systems Integration in the Corporate Information Technology Department, with a special emphasis on integration activities to support mergers and acquisitions. In 1990, Jim was listed in “Who’s Who in the Computer Industry.” Carla Christensen graduated in 1977 receiving her Bachelors Degree in Business Education. She started her career with IBM Corporation as a Systems Engineer and spent 17 years with IBM gaining experience in marketing, systems implementation, project management, and leadership. Carla then joined Hewitt Associates. In 1995 she founded her own consulting business providing project management and facilitation services along with training, coaching, instructional design, and technical writing services for information technology departments of mid-size to Fortune 1000 companies in a variety of industries. Today, Carla enjoys working for Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., a leading software development company that provides software and services to help research libraries. Jim and Carla are life members of the University of Illinois Alumni Association and members of the President’s Council and the Dean’s Club. They have two sons.

Recipients

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