The Bold Leadership Download series features inspiring leaders of industry who share their pathway to success with UT students, faculty and alumni. Themes of this event include entrepreneurship, engineering, leadership, successes and failures.
Keynote lectures will be followed by a moderated Q&A led by student leaders from the Cockrell School of Engineering.
The next Bold Leadership Download to be announced Spring 2025. Check back with us soon.
Past Events
The Bold Leadership Download: A Conversation with Jeannie Leavitt and Tim Crain
Timothy Crain
Senior Vice President, Chief Growth Officer and Co-Founder, Intuitive Machines
Tim Crain received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at The University of Texas where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. He was a civil servant at the NASA Johnson Space Center from 2000-2013, where he worked on advanced mission design and technology development for entry, descent and landing (EDL), precision landing and hazard avoidance (PLHA) and automated rendezvous. In 2013, Crain founded Intuitive Machines with Steve Altemus and Kam Ghaffarian as a think tank to apply NASA engineering approaches to intractable problems across aerospace, energy and medicine. Intuitive Machines narrowed its focus to cislunar and adjacent products and services in 2019, and in 2024 successfully landed the first American lunar lander on the moon since 1972. Intuitive Machines has two more launches planned for 2025.
Jeannie Leavitt
Brigadier General, Commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service, U.S. Air Force
Major General Jeannie M. Leavitt (ret.) served as the Air Force and Space Force Chief of Safety. She entered the Air Force in 1992 after earning her bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) in aerospace engineering from The University of Texas and her master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University. She later earned an MBA from Auburn University, as well as master’s degrees from Air University and National Defense University. General Leavitt has commanded at the flight, squadron and wing level. She is a graduate and former instructor of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School and is a command pilot with more than 3,000 hours, including more than 300 hours in combat.
The Bold Leadership Download: A Conversation with Scott Sheffield
Scott Sheffield
Founder, Pioneer Natural Resources Company
With more than 40 years of energy experience, Scott Sheffield is widely recognized as an industry thought leader and an expert on oil and natural gas exploration and production. After graduating from The University of Texas in 1975 with a bachelor of science in petroleum engineering, he began his career as a reservoir engineer with Amoco Production Company. In 1979, he became the fifth employee of Parker & Parsley Petroleum Company in Midland, where he was the sole staff engineer. By 1991, he was chairman and CEO, and in 1997 he oversaw the company’s merger with MESA Inc. to form Pioneer Natural Resources Company. He retired as CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources Company in 2023.
