1. Home
2. Speakers

Speakers

 

Alicia Abella  AT&T	Matthew Angle  Paradromics	Katalin K. Bartfai-Walcott Intel
Ted Berger  University of Southern California	Tom Coughlin Coughlin Associates	Poppy Crum Dolby Laboratories
Colin Curtin Human Interest	Celia Desmond  Echologics, World Class Telecommunications	Upkar Dhaliwal Future Wireless Technologies
Jaafar Elmirghani University of Leeds	Jeff Fedders Intel	Derek Footer HardTech Labs
Mary Gendron Qualcomm	Christoph Guger g.tec	Karin Hollerbach Cyber-Physical Systems R&D and Deployment
Greg Horowitt T2 Venture Capital	Miku Jha AgShift	Jason Kenagy Good Robot Labs
Rakesh Kumar  TCX Technology Connexions	Tim Mackey GHPi	Bernie Meyerson IBM Corp
Christine Miyachi Xerox	Nicholas Napp  Xmark Labs, LLC	Jeewika Ranaweera Oracle
Conrad Rosenbrock  Brigham Young University	Conor Russomanno Meta	Paul Sajda  Columbia University
Roberto Saracco EIT ICTLABS, EIT Digital	Norman Shaw IEEE Standards Association	Ganesh Subramanian Panimalar Institute of Technology
Laura Specker Sullivan College of Charleston	Raj Tiwari IEEE Digital Reality Co-chair	John Verboncoeur Michigan State University
Stephen Welby IEEE	Sean White Mozilla

Poppy Crum, Dolby Laboratories

Dr. Poppy Crum, is Chief Scientist at Dolby Laboratories. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and the Program in Symbolic Systems. At Dolby, Poppy directs the growth of internal science. She is responsible for integrating neuroscience and sensory data science into algorithm design, technological development, and technology strategy. At Stanford, her work focuses on the impact and feedback potential of new technologies including gaming and immersive environments such as Augmented and Virtual Reality on neuroplasticity and learning. Poppy is a U.S. representative and vice-chair to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and a member of the Stanford Research Institute Technical Council. Prior to joining Dolby Laboratories Poppy was Research Faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where her neurophysiological research focused on understanding the neural correlates of how we hear in a complex acoustic environment and the functional circuitry of the auditory cortex. Poppy is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society.  She is a: 2018 recipient of the Advanced Imaging Society’s Distinguished Leadership Award, a 2017 recipient of the Consumer Technology Association’s Technology and Standards Achievement Award for work towards the introduction of over-the-counter hearing-aid devices, and has been named to Billboard Magazine’s 100 most influential female executives in the music industry. She is a frequent speaker on topics related to the intersection of: human experience, artificial intelligence, sensory data-science, and immersive technologies.

Dr. Alicia Abella, Vice President, AT&T Services, Inc.

Dr. Alicia Abella is Vice President – Advanced Technology Realization, AT&T Services, Inc. where she drives the overall execution of the end-to-end planning, architecture, design, development and deployment of advanced network technologies across AT&T, including Domain 2.0 AT&T Integrated Cloud, ECOMP, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Software Define Networking (SDN), Radio Access Network (RAN) evolution and optical, copper and wireless access and Edge Computing.

In 2015, Dr. Abella was named to the list of Top 20 Latinos in Tech by CNET. In 2013, Dr. Abella received Columbia University’s Medal of Excellence, an award given each year to an alumnus or alumna, under 45 years of age, whose record in scholarship, public service, or professional life is outstanding.  This is the first time since 1929 –when the award was first given– that Columbia has awarded the medal to an engineer. In 2011, she was selected by President Obama to be on his Presidential Advisory Commission for Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Also in 2011, she was inducted into the prestigious WITI (Women in Technology International) Hall of Fame.

Besides her technical contributions, Dr. Abella has been a strong advocate in fostering the development of minorities and women in science and engineering. As Executive Vice President for the Young Science Achievers program, a program she has been involved with for ten years, she has worked tirelessly to bring an interest and excitement in science and engineering to high school aged women and minority students through a program of mentoring and scientific achievement. This is a substantive volunteer activity for her that truly touches the lives of the students involved.

Following completion of her Ph.D. in computer science from Columbia University, Dr. Abella joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ where she began her work in the problem of natural language understanding and dialog management.  In addition to her doctoral work, Dr. Abella received a MS from Columbia and a BS from NYU, both in computer science.

Matthew Angle, Paradromics

Matt has a background in nanotechnology and neuroscience. As a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and as a post-doctoral researcher at Stanford University, he was immersed in the development and the study of neural recording technologies. In the course of his research, he and his collaborators invented a new, powerful way of interfacing with the brain. As Founder and CEO of Paradromics, Matt has assembled a team of physicists, electrical, software, and mechanical engineers to turn a promising technology into a robust, marketable platform.

Katalin K. Bartfai-Walcott, Principal Engineer, Ambient Science Architecture, Intel Corporation

Katalin leads the Ambient Science strategy and architecture team in Intel’s Data Center Software group. Her focus is on the development of self-forming, self-aware and responsive infrastructure without specific user requests and interfaces. The goal of the infrastructure is to orchestrate autonomic resources in a way that obfuscates the complexity of computing from the user while providing a consistent immersive experience. Prior to Intel, Katalin worked with IBM for 22 years, as a Principal for IBM Global Services, where she led the development of IBM’s Linux strategy. She has over 28 years of industry experience, with datacenter architecture, multi-platform systems, including Power/RISC and Linux on Power, as well as cloud computing and executive level consulting. She published over 30 technical papers and several IBM Redbooks. She has spoken at numerous seminars and conferences since 1995, holds 50 patents, and has received IBM’s Chairman’s Award for her work on building the Linux Services and Support strategy.

Dr. Theodore W. Berger, University of Southern California

Dr. Theodore W. Berger is the David Packard Professor of Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California.  Dr. Berger’s research uses an integrated experimental and theoretical approach to develop biologically realistic nonlinear models of the nervous system, and is leading to neural prosthetic devices intended to replace damaged brain regions.  Dr. Berger received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976; his thesis work received the James McKeen Cattell Award from the New York Academy of Sciences.  He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Irvine from 1977-1978, and was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow at The Salk Institute from 1978-1979.  Dr. Berger joined the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh in 1979, being promoted through to Full Professor in 1987.  During that time, he received a McKnight Foundation Scholar Award, twice received an NIMH Research Scientist Development Award, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Since 1992, he has been Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, and was appointed the David Packard Chair of Engineering in 2003.  While at USC, Dr. Berger has received an NIMH Senior Scientist Award, was given the Lockheed Senior Research Award in 1997, and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 1998.  Dr. Berger also received a Person of the Year “Impact Award” from the AARP in 2004 for his work on neural prostheses, was a National Academy of Sciences International Scientist Lecturer in 2003, and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in 2004-2005.  Dr. Berger was elected a Senior Member of the IEEE in 2005, received a “Great Minds, Great Ideas” award from the EE Times in the same year, and in 2006 was awarded the USC Associates Award for Creativity in Research and Scholarship.  Dr. Berger was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2010, received the EMBS Academic Career Achievement Award in 2013, and his work was chosen as one of the “10 Breakthrough Technologies” of 2013 by the MIT Technology Review.  Most recently, Dr. Berger was chosen as one of the “100 Global Thinkers of the Year” by Foreign Policy, was given the “Pioneer in Medicine Award” by the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics in 2016, and also in 2016 received the Australian Medical Society Medal for Medical Research. Dr. Berger has been appointed as an EMBS Distinguished Lecturer for 2018. He has published over 500 journal articles, conference proceedings, and book chapters, and is the co-editor of Toward Replacement Parts for the Brain: Implantable Biomimetic Electronics as Neural Prostheses published by the MIT Press in 2005, as well as the lead co-editor of Brain-Computer Interfaces published in 2008 by Springer.  Dr. Berger’s research continues to be supported by DARPA, ONR, NSF, NIBIB and NINDS.  Translation of some of Dr. Berger’s research has led to commercialization efforts through start-up companies: Safety Dynamics, Inc., Rhenovia Pharma, Inc., Neuralgenix, LLC, and KERNEL LLC.

Tom Coughlin, President Elect, IEEE-USA, President, Coughlin Associates

Tom Coughlin is a widely respected digital storage analyst as well as a business and technology consultant. He has over 35 years in the data storage industry with engineering and management positions at high profile companies.

Dr. Coughlin has many publications and six patents to his credit. Tom is also the author of Digital Storage in Consumer Electronics: The Essential Guide, which is now in its second edition with Springer. Coughlin Associates provides market and technology analysis as well as Data Storage Technical and Business Consulting services. Tom publishes the Digital Storage Technology Newsletter, the Media and Entertainment Storage Report, the Emerging Non-Volatile Memory Report and other industry reports. Tom is also a regular contributor on digital storage for Forbes.com and other blogs.

Tom is active with SMPTE (Journal article writer and Conference Program Committee), SNIA (including a founder of the SNIA SSSI), the IEEE, (he is past Chair of the IEEE Public Visibility Committee, Past Director for IEEE Region 6, President Elect for IEEE-USA and active in the Consumer Electronics Society) and other professional organizations. Tom is the founder and organizer of the Annual Storage Visions Conference as well as the Creative Storage Conference. He was the general chairman of the annual Flash Memory Summit for 10 years. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the Consultants Network of Silicon Valley (CNSV). For more information on Tom Coughlin and his publications and activities go to www.tomcoughlin.com.

Colin Curtin, Engineering Manager, Human Interest

Colin Curtin  is an Engineering Manager for Human Interest, a 401(k) startup in San Francisco. After 18 years creating web applications, he’s worked and managed most levels of the stack from Ethernet to Javascript. He helps people work effectively together by building safe psychological and technical systems.

 

Celia Desmond, TTM 2018 DEP Chair, M.Eng, PMP, SM IEEE, Lead Project Manager at Echologics and Owner, World Class – Telecommunications

Celia Desmond, Lead Project Manager for Echologics Engineering has established a Project Management Office for a rapidly growing company, where her team manages all proposals, contracts and processes for the project managers. She is also President of World Class – Telecommunications, which provides training in telecommunications management. Celia has lectured internationally on programs for success in today’s changing environment. She recently completed a project converting the network of a major Canadian bank to an MPLS network. As a Director at Stentor Resource Center Inc., she was instrumental in establishing culture and new processes for service/product development and for project governance. At Bell Canada, Celia provided strategic direction to corporate planners, ran technology/service trials, standardized equipment, and provided technical and project management support to large business clients.

She has held numerous senior management positions at IEEE including Project Director for Certification in Wireless Engineering Technology, managing a team of over 200 people in 8 different development areas, Director and Secretary of IEEE, IEEE Vice President – Technical Activities, President of IEEE Communications Society. President of IEEE Canada, Division Director, Vice President Engineering Management Society.. Celia holds MSc. Engineering, B.Sc. Mathematics & Psychology, Ontario Teaching Certificate and PMP certification. Celia is the author of Project Management for Telecommunications Managers (Springer). Her pocket book Project Management for Telecommunications Projects was published by Wiley in 2010.

 

Upkar Dhaliwal, IEEE TTM 2018 Local Arrangements, IEEE San Diego Section Chair, IEEE COM-SOC Region 6 NA Board Member,IEEE IOT-J Steering ExCOM, SDN-I, 5G-I, CEO FutureWireless Technologies, Biz Dev: Cognition Systems, Phluido, AgShift, Big DataFederation

Upkar Dhaliwal is an Parallel Entrepreneur and Wireless Technology subject matter expert on Mobility, He has hands on wireless and internet experience undertaking Application, Intellectual Property, Business Development and Technical advisor support on Present and Future Wireless Technologies and its product development for start ups, OEMs, private equity and with most of Market Leaders.A Professional Chartered Engineer of Engineering Council UK, He is a Senior Wireless & RF System Architect Executive an industry expert serving on numerous industrial/technical/policy bodies with US National Policy influences and technical societies with specialized knowledge and technical leadership for many Start up and the investment community.

At present, he is working on beyond 4G charting towards 5G in terms of Cognitive Radios, Distributed Mesh Sensor Radios and beyond LTE-Advance into the World of Big Data and Internet of Things IoT that will drive next generation of Internet. He is a volunteer in many IEEE roles. He grew up in West London England and studied for Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Engineering, Leeds and University College London Universities respectively, leading to early career experiences & contributions in device modeling, circuit design and subsystem developments where he led World wide engineering teams in some World Class Firsts. Some new Firsts are still being implemented in MANET connected devices, Hybrid Cloud Services and Predictive Insight Big Data.

 

Prof. Jaafar Elmirghani is FIET, FIoP, and Director of the Institute of Integrated Information Systems, Leeds. He has provided outstanding leadership in a number of large research projects, and was PI of the £6m EPSRC Intelligent Energy Aware Networks (INTERNET) Programme Grant. He is Co-chair of the IEEE Green ICT initiative, an IEEE Societies initiative responsible for Green ICT activities across IEEE. He was awarded the IEEE Comsoc 2005 Hal Sobol award, 2 IEEE Comsoc outstanding service awards (2009, 2015), the 2015 GreenTouch 1000x award, IET Optoelectronics 2016 Premium Award and shared the 2016 Edison Award in the collective disruption category with a team of 6 from GreenTouch for joint work on the GreenMeter. His work led to 5 IEEE standards with a focus on energy efficiency, where he currently heads the work group responsible for IEEE P1925.1, IEEE P1926.1, IEEE P1927.1, IEEE P1928.1 and IEEE P1929.1, this resulting in significant impact through industrial and academic uptake. He was an IEEE Comsoc Distinguished Lecturer 2013-2016. He has published over 450 technical papers, and has research interests in green communication networks.

 

Jeff G Fedders, Director of Ambient Science Standards, Society 5.0 Chief Strategist, Next Generation Standards (NGS) – Intel Corporation

Jeff Fedders is the Director of Ambient Science Standards for the Next Generation Standards Group at Intel Corporation. In his role, he oversees the Intel Society 5.0 and Ambient Science pathfinding efforts and charting the strategies for Ambient Science Standards, Consortia, and Strategic Partnerships.

Mr. Fedders is leading an industry transformation defining a new branch of science focused on self-identity, discovery, and citizenship of the physical and cyber objects. He is focused on developing industry initiatives to create the fundamental components of Ambient Science targeting the next societal transformational wave, Society 5.0, a collaboration of Humans and AI.

Mr. Fedders has served on numerous board of directors and steering committees. Mr. Fedders was one of the founders and current President of the OpenFog Consortium. He also was a founder of the Industrial Internet Consortium and Chairman of the Board of the IPSO Alliance.

 

Derek Footer, HardTech Labs

Derek Footer is Managing Partner of HardTech Labs, an investment fund with an accompanying health accelerator based in San Diego. Prior to founding HTL, he was Managing Partner of Origo Ventures, a seed stage venture capital fund investing in Latin American technology companies, founded both BlueLake Media Corp., a broadcaster of European premier league soccer in North America and JardineFooter, Inc., an Internet consultancy founded in Chile. He served as Vice President for Content at OpenTV and the head of DirecTV Latin America’s interactive television group. He is a Board Member and General Counsel for Hands United for Children. He has a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mary Gendron, Qualcomm Incorporated

Mary Gendron is senior vice president and chief information officer for Qualcomm Incorporated. In this role, Gendron leads Qualcomm’s global IT organization, driving operational excellence within the IT function and across the enterprise, as well as collaborating with the executive and business unit leadership teams to ensure Qualcomm continues to incorporate forward-looking technology solutions into the business, products, and strategies to achieve Company business goals.

Prior to joining Qualcomm, Gendron served as senior vice president and chief information officer at Hospira, a leading global pharmaceutical and medical device company. Gendron brings more than 25 years of IT experience to the role, with expertise in developing and executing IT and talent-focused strategies, services and plans. She has led complex global organizations, driving proactive business strategies required to develop differentiation and has consistently generated customer, shareholder and employee value. Prior to working at Hospira, Gendron served as CIO at Celestica International, Inc., and served in other senior IT leadership positions at companies like The Nielsen Company, Motorola and Bell Canada

Gendron holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Canada.

Christoph Guger, g.tec

Christoph Guger is the founder and CEO of g.tec medical engineering GmbH. He studied Biomedical Engineering at the Technical University of Graz, Austria and at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. During his studies, he concentrated on BCI systems and developed many of the early foundations for bio-signal acquisition and processing in real-time. g.tec produces and develops BCIs that help disabled people communicate or control their environments by their thoughts, regain motor functions after a stroke, and achieve other goals. The products and research activities have been widely presented in peer-reviewed research publications, demonstrating the high quality of g.tec’s tools and methods. He is running several international BCI research projects.

Karin Hollerbach, Cyber-Physical Systems R&D and Deployment

Karin Hollerbach’s interests at the intersection of science and engineering have led to a longstanding exploration of cyber-physical systems, both current and future, in which humans and other life forms interact closely with engineered systems. She currently leads R&D activities at a Silicon Valley wearables startup, collaborates internationally on research projects, and serves as Managing Director of Taku International, a Germany and US-based technology consulting and investment company. She has worked with organizations in over 30 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Karin frequently works on developing and deploying technologies in the med tech, ag tech, and clean tech/energy sectors.  Previously, she served in interdisciplinary roles at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, SRI, and Draper Lab.  Karin earned undergraduate degrees from MIT (EECS and Biology), and a PhD (Control Theory/Robotics) from UC Berkeley/UCSF. Outside of work, Karin enjoys the wilderness and piloting aircraft, and volunteers with the Civil Air Patrol/US Air Force Auxiliary.

Greg Horowitt, Co-Founder, T2 Venture Capital

Venture Capitalist, Innovation Ecosystem Architect, author, serial entrepreneur, public speaker and adviser to international and domestic organizations and governments. Unique expertise at the intersection of high impact startup investment + mentorship, innovation based economic development, capital formation, policy, strategy, technology transfer and commercialization. Co-founder of a leading innovation think tank, and prior experience as senior executive for Fortune 500 company. Extensive for-profit and not-for-profit board experience.

Miku Jha, Founder and CEO, AgShift

Miku Jha is the founder and CEO of AgShift. She grew up planting mango trees on a 4th generation family farm – in a Smallholder farming community – in Northern India. Miku is a passionate entrepreneur and product executive with a proven track record. She has led multiple startups from founding stage to successful acquisitions & mergers with companies such as IBM and Xyratex. As a product executive she has launched large scale enterprise products in mobile and internet of things for companies such as VMware and IBM.

Miku helped build and scale multiple storage, mobile software startups into well-known global companies. She was instrumental in growing the storage business as a Founding engineer at Ariodata, which was acquired by Xyratex Inc. She helped grow and scale mobile business and product at Worklight, which was acquired by IBM. She has lead several mobile and IoT initiatives at IBM – under Mobile First portfolio. She was responsible for successful execution of Mobile virtualization initiative at VMware under the office of the CTO. At AgShift, Miku manages a nimble team of data scientists, researchers and technologists driven by a single passion – to digitize food supply chain with cutting edge innovations in deep learning and data science – which results in better transparency, better food quality and reduced food wastage.

Miku serves on the advisory board of BetterMDM, PlainMark and MergeLane. Miku has a MBA from Cornell University and a BS (Hons.) in Computer Science from University of Mumbai. With AgShift, she is inspired to apply technology to solve real challenges in Agriculture, globally. She is also passionate about women in technology. She has lead multiple corporate initiatives to help young women entrepreneurs succeed. She continues to be a mentor to many young women entrepreneurs in technology – inspiring and guiding them to success!

Jason Kenagy, Good Robot Labs

Jason is a partner at Good Robot Labs, a creative capital studio that partners with entrepreneurs and existing businesses to advise, build, operate, and transfer new technology products, services, and businesses.

Jason brings decades of groundbreaking experience in invention, product design, development and deployment, and team building and leadership to the ventures that he pursues. Jason is the inventor on over 300 granted international patents and product deployments across a broad range of technology and business spaces including 2G to 5G wireless connectivity systems, mobile computing, IoT devices and systems, smartphone devices, apps stores, multimedia, UX/UI, AR/XR, location services, and identity and authentication systems to name a few. Jason has retained his original passion in pioneering cognitive science work in human-computer interaction at UC San Diego as he broadened his skill set to become a world class “product guy” today with leadership experience across virtually all organizational functions in companies ranging from startups to multinational corporations. As a strategic inventor and product management devotee, Jason recently led Qualcomm’s IP product strategy group as Vice President of Product Management to bring transformative practices to Treat IP as Product for Qualcomm’s global invention and patenting roadmap. Most of all, Jason enjoys developing and working shoulder-to-shoulder with passionate and collaborative individuals that challenge him to better himself and the ventures that he invests himself in.

Rakesh Kumar, Ph.D., President and CEO, TCX Technology Connexions

Dr. Rakesh Kumar is a semiconductor industry veteran, an entrepreneur, and an educator. He is President and CEO of TCX Technology Connexions, a company which provides management, business, entrepreneurial and technical ‘bridging the gaps’ consulting services in advanced semiconductor technology and virtual operations areas. Clients include emerging fabless IC companies, mid-size and large, Fortune 500 IC companies, as well as leading research organizations. Currently he educates and mentors potential entrepreneurs at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Kumar authored the book “Fabless Semiconductor Implementation”, published by McGraw Hill. He is an IEEE Life Fellow and active volunteer since late 1980’s. He was the President of IEEE’s 10,000 member Solid-State Circuits Society during 2012-13.

During his 42 year career in the semiconductor industry Dr. Kumar has also been the VP&GM of Cadence Design’s worldwide Silicon Technology Services business unit, and has held various technical and management positions at Unisys and Motorola.

He received the Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester in 1974 and 1971 respectively. He graduated from IIT Delhi in 1969 with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. He received an Executive MBA from the University of California, San Diego in 1989.

Tim Ken Mackey, Director, GHPi

Tim Ken Mackey is the Director of GHPi, an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Global Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and is the Associate Director for the UC San Diego MAS Program in Health Policy & Law. He holds a BA in Political Science-International Relations and a Masters Degree in Health Policy & Law from UC San Diego and also earned his PhD in Global Public Health from the joint doctoral program at UC San Diego – San Diego State University.

His work focuses on a broad array of multidisciplinary topics in domestic and global public health. This includes cross-cutting research in disciplines of public health, medicine, international relations, public policy, law, innovation, substance abuse, eHealth, crime, and global governance. He has extensive professional experience including consulting for the World Health Organization, the US Department of State and others. See his full bio here. http://www.ghpolicy.org/people/tmac.html.

Dr Bernard S. Meyerson, Chief Innovation Officer, IBM Corp.

Dr. Meyerson, an IBM Fellow, serves as IBM’s Chief Innovation Officer.  Joining IBM in 1980, Dr. Meyerson invented Silicon:Germanium technology, ultimately founding and leading IBM’s highly successful Analog and Mixed Signal business. He went on to many executive roles, leading global semiconductor development, strategic alliances for the Systems and Technology Group, and culminating in his present role from 2010 as IBM’s Chief Innovation Officer. His team leads the definition and integration of corporate-wide technical and business strategic initiatives.  He also serves as Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technology.

Dr. Meyerson is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering.  He has received numerous technical and business awards, as for example the Lifetime Achievement Award from SEMI, the 2011 Pake Prize of the American Physical Society, 2014 Turing Lecturer at the Royal Institute, …..   Most recently Dr. Meyerson was honored with the 2015 National Medal for Public Service by the government of Singapore for his many years of service and impact as advisor to the nation.

 

Christine Miyachi, Xerox

Christine Miyachi has almost 30 years of experience working for startups and large corporations. She writes a blog about software architecture: http://abstractsoftware.blogspot.com/. She is currently a systems engineer  at Xerox Corporation and holds several patents.  She works on Xerox’s Extensible Interface Platform which is a software platform upon which developers can use standard web-based tools to create  applications that can be configured to use on Xerox devices. Miyachi graduated from the University of Rochester with a BS in electrical engineering. She holds two MIT degrees: an MS in technology and policy/electrical engineering and computer science and an MS in System Design and Management. See more about Chris at www.christinemiyachi.com

 

 Nicholas Napp, Co-Founder, Xmark Labs LCC

Nicholas Napp has been working with VR and AR systems since the early 1990s. His team at Rainbow Studios pioneered the use of VR in 3D animation production.

Nicholas has brought over 40 products to market across a wide range of consumer and enterprise markets. He is a systems thinker with broad skills in business development; product development; innovation & technology; and strategic marketing and partnerships. He is particularly focused on the integration of strategy, technology and corporate narrative to accelerate business growth.

His prior roles include leading multiple startups; Lead External Technology Scout, North America for Sony Ericsson; and Vice-President, Animation, Rainbow Studios (sold to THQ, inc.). He is also Chairman of the Board at FabNewport, a non-profit makerspace for middle school and older students.

Jeewika Ranaweera, Principal Hardware Engineer, Oracle

Jeewika Ranaweera is a principal hardware engineer at Oracle. She received her Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Engineering from ISPJAE in Havana, Cuba; and her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. She is a member of the Oracle Semiconductor Engineering team that develops high-speed microprocessors. She is an IEEE Senior Member, an ABET program evaluator for IEEE, and a Sustainability Champion at Oracle.

Jeewika authored an eBook about her engineering journey for IEEE Women in Engineering to inspire others to follow STEM careers and illustrated the 1^st children’s book published by IEEE. She was a speaker at the 2017 Grace Hopper Conference in Orlando, Florida on “High Performance Computing and Engineering track” and contributed to the development of the next generation of women in technology. She was a panelist at the 2017 IEEE Women in Computing Summit’s Innovation Panel on “How to stay ahead of the curve in technology”. As a judge for local and international science fairs, she gets to motivate and stimulate the interests of students in the fields of science and engineering.

Through Oracle Women in Leadership, she networks with like-minded women who are committed, diverse and passionate while enhancing her leadership skills. As an ambassador for Oracle Diversity and Inclusion, she shared her experience and insight as an engineer at the “True Blue Inclusion Solutions Forum” to tackle head-on issues that so far have rebuffed the change essential to make engineering jobs rewarding for women. She also develops curriculums and deliver workshops surrounding wearable technology through the Oracle Education Foundation. Through ABET, she helps guide the content, quality and delivery of ECE degree programs around the world. She also makes a difference to the health and safety of employees by volunteering with Oracle’s Emergency Response Team.

She has authored and co-authored many papers published in technical journals, or presented at international conferences. Jeewika holds four U.S. Patents.

Dr. Conrad Rosenbrock, Brigham Young University

Dr. Conrad Rosenbrock is the founder and former President of Tracy Inc., an advanced materials research company that applies state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to discover and optimize super materials. This drives the future of super technologies by exploring the vast space of elemental combinations to unearth the outliers. Bringing these new super materials to light builds a stronger economy, a cleaner planet and improves the lifestyles and wellbeing of humanity in ways limited only by imagination. He is also adjunct research faculty at Brigham Young University in the Department of Physics. Dr. Rosenbrock’s research interests focus on machine learning of quantum physics in materials, ranging from approximations to the quantum mechanics of atomic interactions up through applying artificial intelligence to grain boundaries. He is passionate about earth replenishment and sustainability, and developing those super technologies that will ensure a vibrant planet for future generations while allowing us to maintain modern quality of life.

Conor Russomanno, Director of Advanced Interfaces, Meta, OpenBCI Co-Founder and CEO

Conor Russomanno is the Director of Advanced Interfaces at Meta, one of the pioneering companies in Augmented Reality (AR). Conor is also the co-founder and CEO of OpenBCI, a company dedicated to open-source innovation of brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies. Conor studied Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University and then went on to study Design and Technology at Parsons School of Design. After completing grad school, Conor taught graduate level courses in Creative Coding, Physical Computing, Philosophy of the Mind, and Human-Computer Interaction at Parsons School of Design’s MFA Design & Technology (MFADT) program, as well as New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). Conor’s current career interests lie at the intersection of Augmented Reality, Brain-Computer Interfacing, and Artificial Intelligence.

Paul Sajda, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Radiology (Physics), Columbia University

Paul Sajda is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Radiology (Physics) at Columbia University. He is also a Member of Columbia’s Data Science Institute. He received a BS in electrical engineering from MIT in 1989 and an MSE and PhD in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1992 and 1994, respectively. Professor Sajda is interested in what happens in our brains when we make a rapid decision and, conversely, what processes and representations in our brains drive our underlying preferences and choices, particularly when we are under time pressure. His work in understanding the basic principles of rapid decision-making in the human brain relies on measuring human subject behavior simultaneously with cognitive and physiological state. Important in his approach is his use of machine learning and data analytics to fuse these measurements for predicting behavior and infer brain responses to stimuli. Professor Sajda applies the basic principles he uncovers to construct real-time brain-computer interfaces that are aimed at improving interactions between humans and machines. He is also applying his methodology to understand how deficits in rapid decision-making may underlie and be diagnostic of many types of psychiatric diseases and mental illnesses. Professor Sajda is a co-founder of several neurotechnology companies and works closely with a range of scientists and engineers, including neuroscientists, psychologists, computer scientists, and clinicians. He is a fellow of the IEEE, AMBIE and AAAS and Chair of the IEEE Brain Initiative.

 

Roberto Saracco, President of EIT ICTLABS Italy and Head of EIT Digital (European Institute of Innovation and Technology for the Digital Transformation) Industrial Doctoral School, IEEE Symbiotic Autonomous Systems Chair

Roberto Saracco is the President of EIT ICTLABS Italy and Head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital. His background is in math and computer science. Up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the Industry Advisory Board within the Future Directions Committee. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 16 books.

Norman Shaw, IEEE Standards Association

Norman Shaw is the Director of Product and Business Development with the IEEE Standards Association. Prior to joining the IEEE, Norman worked in the wireless/telecommunications industry for over 20 years and held positions at every level within the Engineering/Product Development disciplines; from Staff Engineer to Chief Technical Officer (CTO).

Norman’s experience spans all sizes and types of organizations, from leadership within AT&T Wireless to Senior Management within Silicon Valley start-up companies. He was engaged with the 3GPP for ten years and served as Rapporteur for new technology Study Items (SI), Work Items (WI) and actual changes in 3G and 4G wireless standards.  Norman holds a BSEE and MSEE from the University of South Florida and has completed all his PhD course work in Semiconductor Physics at the University of Pittsburgh.

Ganesh Subramanian, Professor, Panimalar Institute of Technology

Dr. Ganesh Subramanian completed his doctoral degree in electronics engineering. He is working as a Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Panimalar Institute of Technology, Chennai. He is the Chief-Operations for Chennai-based Aerial Robotic Companies Aero 360 and Vimanam where he handles operations, team coordination and R&D activities. He is the mentor of Team Dronix, an aerial robotics student’s start-up. The teams led by him have participated in the International ROBOSUB competition held at San Diego, CA, USA, under the sponsorship of the Indian Government in July 2012, and in Singapore Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition (SAUVC) in March 2013, March 2015 and March 2016, Singapore Robotics Game (SRG) 2014 as well as 2016.

He had been Invited and presented as a speaker for “The Commercial UAV show Asia 2016” at Singapore , in “Small Unmanned Business System Exposition2017” at San Francisco, California , in “Drone Tech Europe 2017” at Bristol, U.K, WF-IOT, Singapore- Feb 2018 and Next Generation Summit -NYC,USA-June 2018. He is a Senior Member at IEEE, a Global Mentor in the UAV field at IEEE AESS, and a 2018 IEEE Entrepreneurship Steering Committee member.

Laura Specker Sullivan, a specialist in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural ethics, is an Assistant Professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston. She has held fellowships at the Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, University of Washington, the National Core for Neuroethics, University of British Columbia, and the Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University. She received her PhD in philosophy from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She is currently the chair of the Neuroethics Affinity Group for the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and a member of the Philosophy and Medicine committee of the American Philosophical Association.

Rajiv Tiwari (Raj), IEEE Digital Reality Co-chair

Raj Tiwari is a Futurist and leading Digital Transformation leader. In last 23 years of his global experience, Raj has shared his expertise and helped several Fortune 500 Companies. Raj is Johnson & Johnson Technology manager and Immersive Technologies Global Service Owner (JJTS).  Raj is serving on the Judge panel of MIT’s flagship initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE) – The Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC).

Raj is also associated with several of the world’s leading professional associations (IEEE, APICS and CSCMP) and contributing to many industries. He has been Vice Chair (PACE-NJC) of IEEE, the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation.

For five consecutive years, Raj was nominated as a Board of Directors member and elected as Vice-President (PSJC) of APICS, the leading professional association since 1957 for supply chain and operations management.

Raj’s contributions aren’t limited to helping industry level. Raj is dedicated and passionate about helping and advancing millennial’s STEM skills and the workforce for the future via innovation.

John Verboncoeur (M’94,SM’08,F’13) received a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California-Berkeley (UCB) in 1992. Faculty appointments include Associate Research Engineer (UCB-EECS 1996), Professor (UCB-Nuclear Engineering Associate-2001, full-2008, Chair Computational Engineering Science 2001-2010), Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University (MSU) 2011+, Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering 2015+, Associate Dean for Research 2014+. His research interests are in theoretical and computational plasma physics. He has authored/coauthored over 350 journal articles and conference papers, with over 3,500 citations. He is an Associate Editor for Physics of Plasmas, and Past President of the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society. Technology startup activities include development of one of the big three consumer credit reports, work on the hardware/software of the US Postal Service Mail Forwarding System, command and control software in the defense sector, computerized exercise equipment, and a pioneering cloud-based healthcare management system.

 

Stephen Welby, IEEE

Stephen Welby is the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow with more than 423,000 members in over 160 countries, and through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities. IEEE is the trusted “voice” for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe.

Prior to joining IEEE, in 2015 Stephen was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the US Senate as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.  In this role, he served as the chief technology officer for the U.S. Department of Defense, leading one of the largest and most complex research, development, and engineering organizations in the world.  He oversaw a $12.5B annual investment portfolio, managed internal and collaborative research and engineering efforts, drove a culture that valued innovation, and supported the department’s global technical engagement.

Stephen has more than three decades of government and industrial experience in technology and product development, including senior leadership positions at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  His technical experience includes development of leading edge aeronautical and space systems, robotics, machine learning, high-performance software, and sensor systems.

Stephen holds a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a master’s degree in business administration from the Texas A&M University, and master’s degrees in computer science and applied mathematics from The Johns Hopkins University. He is a fellow of the IEEE.

Sean White, Chief R&D Officer, Mozilla

Sean White is a high-tech executive, entrepreneur, inventor, and musician who has spent his career leading innovative development of the experiences, systems, and technologies that enable creative expression, connect us to each other, and enhance our understanding of the world around us. He was most recently the founder and CEO of BrightSky Labs, a company he incubated while an EIR at Greylock Partners, and is currently teaching CS377m: HCI Issues in Mixed & Augmented Reality at Stanford University.

Before Greylock Partners, Sean founded and built the Interaction Ecologies Group at Nokia, leading multiple innovative efforts in new mobile forms and experiences in the areas of wearables, Internet of Things, and augmented reality. His previous roles include Chief Technology Officer of NeoCarta Ventures, Vice President of Technology for Lycos, Inc. (acquired by Terra Networks), and Chief Technology Officer of WhoWhere? (acquired by Lycos). Prior to that, Sean was a project lead and member of the research staff at Paul Allen’s Interval Research Corporation. He holds Advisory Board positions with Perch, and Virtual Workflow, and previously held Advisory Board positions with NY Sun Works, Environmental Defense, Evite, Gravity and OpenVoice.

In addition to 30+ peer reviewed publications and 20+ patents granted or filed, Sean is a 2009 Tech Award Laureate for his work on computer vision-based mobile botanical species identification. He has lectured and taught in the Stanford Program in Human-Computer Interaction and at Columbia University, mentored for Engineers without Borders, and served as facilitator for the Clinton Global Initiative. He held an appointment as a Visiting Scientist at the Smithsonian Institution and served on the Steering Committee for IEEE’s International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR).

Sean earned his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University.