David Porush

President & CEO

David Porush joined MentorNet as President and CEO in July, 2008, bringing with him a strong record of leadership as scholar, professor, entrepreneur, and Web innovator. "MentorNet is where aspiration meets experience," David has said in his acceptance letter. "I hope to build on the strong foundation and clear vision I found in place and continue to grow this inspiring mission."

Porush came to MentorNet after co-founding and serving as Chairman of SpongeFish, a social network for global knowledge exchange based in San Francisco. David and his team grew SpongeFish to serve millions of users. It was selected by Dow Jones as one of the outstanding new Web 2.0 companies of 2008.

From 2003-2007, David was Executive Director of SUNY Learning Environments responsible for new academic media and technology for the 64 campuses and 425,000 students of the State University of New York, the nation's largest comprehensive public university. He grew the SUNY Learning Network from 25,000 to 100,000 enrollments in addition to launching an array of innovative new online degrees – including the cross-university Electrical Engineering bachelors degree online, new Web 2.0 technologies, programs, projects, conferences, and computer access initiatives for students and faculty on campuses.

Porush was Professor of Literature and Media Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he developed and directed the nation's first degree program in electronic media, arts, and communication, served as founder and co-director of the artificial intelligence research lab, and founded and directed the First-Year Humanities Interdisciplinary program. He is the author of three books, more than fifty book chapters and journal articles, dozens of reviews, plays, magazine articles, and a collection of short stories. His work has been featured on The Discovery Channel, Voice of America, in Omni magazine and The New York Times, on National Public Radio, and widely on the Internet. He received his B.Sc. from MIT and his Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo (SUNY).

David was named Distinguished University Teaching Fellowship and the Provost’s Scholars Professor at RPI. He was the senior Fulbright Professor to Israel in 1993-94, living there with his family and serving on the faculty of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He is co-founder of The Society for Literature and Science, past executive of the Literature and Science division of the Modern Language Association, and associate editor of two scholarly journals. He was awarded grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry R. Luce Foundation, FIPSE, Apple, the U.S. Department of Education, and others for research and new programs. He has also consulted on communications strategies for GE’s Center for Research and Development, Bell Labs, IBM, Perkin-Elmer, and other companies.

You can reach David at david@mentornet.net