From Classroom
to Career

Andrea is currently a Senior Manager at Grubhub, focusing on Loyalty program strategy and growth. Her journey at Grubhub began in 2023 as a Senior Marketing Analyst for CRM strategy, where she focused on optimizing engagement for push and email communications.

After that, Andrea spent a year working in Market Strategy Growth at Grubhub, which led to her current role in Loyalty. Before joining Grubhub, Andrea honed her analytical skills at Bank of America, where she served as a Quantitative Analyst in Consumer Credit Risk and later transitioned into Credit Card Marketing after completing her 2-year rotational program.

She earned her degree in Economics and Statistics with a minor in Data Analytics from NC State University in 2020.

James Cottrell III is a veteran technology educator and creative entrepreneur based in Chicago. With over 15 years of experience in higher education, he has served as an adjunct instructor across Chicago's for-profit academic sector, including a long-standing tenure at Colorado Technical University (CSU) and a recent appointment at National Louis University. He is perhaps best known for his mentorship during his years at Sanford-Brown College (IADT Chicago Campus), where he bridged the gap between classroom theory and real-world software development.

A decade ago, Cottrell applied that same mentorship model to the creation of Project Fly, a large-scale technology initiative that he developed with an initial team of 20 developers—several of whom he personally recruited from his former Sanford-Brown classrooms.

Today, Cottrell leads two mission-driven companies focused on bringing technology and media production to urban youth and adult communities. Quake Technology Inc. operates as a mobile application development, digital content marketing, and augmented reality firm. Quake Studios LLC serves as the production arm, developing original mobile video games, feature films, and 3D animation. His work continues to demonstrate that the pipeline from classroom instruction to industry innovation is the most direct path to economic empowerment in the digital age.