Tony K. Cho
Vice President and Director
Mr. Tony K. Cho has been leading UMGC Europe as vice president and director since Fall 2017 following a tenure as the associate vice president and deputy director of UMGC Asia. He retired as a colonel after 26 years of duty in the United States Army, and from a culminating assignment as the Northeast Asia Policy Division Chief for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon. His educational background includes a Master of Arts in East Asian Studies and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University; a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University; a Master of Arts in National Security Studies from the U.S. Army War College; and a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois. Prior to his military service, Mr. Cho also worked as an engineer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems and at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.
Ms. Patricia A. Coopersmith has served as the associate vice president and deputy director, UMGC Europe, since November 2016, responsible for headquarters departments and for a wide variety of policies and processes across the division. She has over 30 years of business and advisory experience in academic, government, and corporate environments. Prior to UMGC, Ms. Coopersmith served at the DoD National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, D.C., as the director of Outreach, International Relations, and Academic Partnerships. There, she was responsible for NDU's iCollege Academic Partnership Program, growing it from eight university partners to more than forty. UMGC was the first NDU partner. Ms. Coopersmith has worked extensively with the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies, as well as with international Defense Ministries in Europe and in Asia. She has taught as an adjunct professor at NDU and at the University of Mary Washington. Prior to her tenure at NDU, she served as a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) management consultant for IBM and for PricewaterhouseCoopers and as an industrial engineer for Westinghouse Corporation. Her education includes an MBA from Augusta University and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Penn State University.
Dr. Andrew D. Boone was appointed associate vice provost for UMGC Europe Academic Affairs in 2017, and is now associate vice president and associate dean. As senior academic officer, he provides leadership for all undergraduate and graduate programs in Europe. His primary goal is to ensure students receive quality learning experiences that provide them with the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to be competent professionals and citizens. Passionate about excellence in teaching, he also directs the management of the faculty corps who teach at over 50 sites across Europe and the Middle East. Dr. Boone has taught statistics, math, economics, and business courses on two continents for the better part of three decades with UMGC. In addition, he has taught at Houston Community College, the University of Houston, and the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Dr. Boone holds a BS in Economics from the University of Arizona. Additionally, he earned an MS and a PhD in Economics from the University of Houston.