John Wetsch, Ph.D., PMP, has more than 30 years of experience working in industry, government and higher education. He is a recognized industry leader in large-scale information systems development and deployment, software engineering, systems analysis and design, cybersecurity, cloud migration, risk management and related technologies.

Dr. Wetsch has served in various technical capacities and senior IT roles as a program manager, project director, principal engineer, systems engineer and senior systems programmer. He has worked with Northrop Grumman, the U.S. Air Force Space Command (now U.S. Space Force), the U.S. Postal Service, the U.S. Courts and the State of North Carolina before joining Wake Tech. He has also been providing master classes in Cloud Computing at Caltech through its Center for Technology and Management Education.

Dr. Wetsch has received numerous awards and recognitions, including appointment as a Northrop Grumman Technical Fellow, recipient of Computerworld Magazine's 100 Premier IT Leaders and trustee emeritus with Excelsior University.

Jeff Banham has been teaching in the Cloud Infrastructure program at Wake Tech since 2020.  He brings more than 30 years of industry experience in the telecom and high-tech sectors to his role, having worked in both technical and management roles throughout his career.

He holds a bachelor's degree in Information Science from Drexel University and is a 2023 recipient of the Wake Tech Excellence in Teaching award.

Joan Copperthwaite teaches computer information systems, network operations, systems integration and system security courses at Wake Tech. She previously taught math courses at the college.

Before joining Wake Tech, she was a member of the scientific staff at Nortel Networks in Research Triangle Park, where she was responsible for architectural improvements and software implementations for network switches. She also served as a staff Programmer at IBM in RTP, where she designed and developed networking software for routers and network controllers.

Copperthwaite also was an associate engineer in the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, where she developed real-time software for Defense Department radar systems.

She enjoys running and walking with her dog, Luke, playing tennis and riding horses. She supports Corral Riding Academy, a Cary nonprofit that strives to better the lives of at-risk teenage girls and rescue horses by forming a partnership between them.

Other hobbies include reading – her favorite book is "Unbroken" – watching a good TV series and appreciating nature and animals.

Ali Darvish has been teaching operating system and Linux classes for more than 10 years at Wake Tech.

Darvish previously worked for the federal government and in the private sector analyzing and testing networking protocols, hardware and software. He was a teacher assistant and tutor for calculus and engineering math at the University of Massachusetts.

Sarah Leckman has been teaching at Wake Tech since 2022. She previously worked in various IT roles, including Tier 1 and Tier 2 support, Windows systems administration, project management and team leadership.

With years of experience in industry and certifications from Microsoft and CompTIA, Leckman brings practical knowledge and technical skills to the classroom to support student learning and career readiness.

Associate Professor Julie Martinez Hayes has been teaching network security and operating systems at Wake Tech since 2014. Before that, she worked as a network engineer and system administrator for nonprofits, municipalities, colleges and at the Pentagon.

Her favorite topics are network and domain architecture and network security and teaching technicians safe computing practices. She gears her classes for problems encountered on the job and problem solving.

Martinez Hayes spends her free time biking, kayaking, breeding tropical fish and gardening.