Sara Custer to Present Opening Plenary at 2026 ACC
Sara Custer, Editor-in-Chief, Inside Higher Ed
The State of Higher Education
Fundamental changes have been made to the agencies and policies affecting student borrowers, financial aid, college endowments and admissions. The longstanding partnership between the government and the country’s research institutions has been rewritten, while colleges face growing political and financial pressure. Join Inside Higher Ed’s editor-in-chief, Sara Custer, to parse the last several months of upheaval in higher ed and consider what the future holds.
Sara Custer was named editor-in-chief of Inside Higher Ed in March 2024. Custer leads Inside Higher Ed’s editorial staff, working with its talented team of editors and reporters to shape its editorial future. She was previously an editor at Times Higher Education (THE) and an accomplished higher education journalist.
Custer served since 2020 as editor of THE Campus, a peer resource site for higher education professionals. There, she worked across departments to launch and grow Campus and led its editorial team. Prior to that role, she served as THE’s digital editor, helping to launch THE’s newsletter strategy and overseeing daily, weekly and monthly publications. She previously served as editor and senior reporter at The PIE News, covering the international education industry. Custer grew up in Cushing, Okla., and earned a B.A. in English literature from Loyola University Chicago and an M.A. in international journalism from City, University of London.
Matt Kirchner to Present Friday Plenary at 2026 ACC
Matt Kirchner, The TechEd Podcast
Future-Focused Leadership – AI and the Transformation of Higher Education
As host of the TechEd Podcast, Matt Kirchner has a panoramic view into the minds of the most disruptive leaders in education and technology. He has traveled the globe to hear and see – firsthand – how technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Physical AI are transforming our world inside and outside higher ed.
Unprecedented advancements in fields including humanoid robots, agentic AI, and predictive social media together with the evolving brains of our students and learners are reshaping everything about higher education.
Just in the last year Matt has been joined by members of the President’s Cabinet, Congresspeople from both sides of the aisle, Fortune 500 CEOs and visionary educators - all with the goal of helping education stay ahead of the most rapid rate of change in human history. Leave this presentation with a new perspective on transformative technology, how it will affect education inside and outside the classroom and with a newly informed strategy of how you can lead in this new age.
Matt Kirchner (pronounced “Kirk-ner”) is an international speaker, author and podcast host on topics of interest to educators, public policy makers and private employers. On a mission to secure the American Dream for the next generation of STEM and Workforce talent, Kirchner hosts the weekly TechEd Podcast, featuring leaders in industry and education and serves as President of ATS/LAB Midwest, the leading distributor of world-class curriculum, eLearning and training equipment.
Kirchner writes monthly leadership columns appearing in Products Finishing and Production Machining magazines and is the author of “Teaching the Industrial Internet of Things: Preparing Students and Learners for Industry 4.0.” Previously Kirchner led three world class manufacturing companies during a 20+ career as an industrial CEO. He and his partners sold their last company, American Finishing Resources, to DuBois Chemicals in 2014.
Kirchner serves on the boards of directors of several American companies and among his many volunteer activities is the First-Past President of the Education Dealers Association. He currently serves on the board of trustees of the American Technical Education Association and on the board of the Smart Automation Certification Alliance. He is a graduate of the Marquette University School of Business.
