Dr. Haneen Farah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Transport & Planning at Delft University of Technology and co-director of the Traffic and Transportation Safety Lab. She also serves as head of the Traffic Systems Engineering section. Her research focuses on road infrastructure design, road user behavior, and traffic safety, integrating transportation engineering, human factors, and econometrics. Prior to TU Delft, she was a postdoc at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and earned her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Her work includes national/international projects like SAMEN (mixed automated/human traffic implications), AfroSAFE (road safety in Africa), and XCARCITY (sustainable city mobility). She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on road design and traffic safety, including online programs for low/middle-income countries. Farah supervises multiple PhD and Master students in her research areas, contributing to over 50 peer-reviewed publications. Key research themes include infrastructure design for automated vehicles, driver behavior modeling, cyclist safety, and policy implementation of the Safe System approach. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges engineering and psychology to enhance traffic safety and efficiency through advanced analytics and simulation models.
Laura Ray is the Myron Tribus Professor of Engineering Innovation and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development at the Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on autonomous robotics, system dynamics, and machine intelligence with applications in polar exploration and agriculture. She leads NSF- and NASA-funded projects, including the development of robots like Yeti and Cool Robot for remote terrain analysis. Education: BSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University (1984), MSE in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University (1985), and PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University (1991). Research Interests: Her work spans robotics navigation, cooperative multi-robot systems, and acoustic signal processing. Recent projects include tactile sensing for agricultural robotics and terrain identification algorithms for autonomous vehicles. Awards: Honored with the 2022 Outstanding Service Award, National Academy of Inventors Senior Membership (2020), and multiple fellowships in engineering. Notable contributions include patents for noise-canceling devices and adaptive filtering technologies. Leadership: Served as Interim Dean of Thayer School (2018–2021) and co-leads initiatives like the NSF-funded PhD Innovation Program. Teaches courses in control theory (ENGS 26) and systems engineering (ENGS 22). Key Achievements: Developed robots that reduce risks in polar regions, supported NASA missions, and pioneered precision agriculture technologies. Her lab's innovations have been highlighted in Science, National Geographic, and IEEE Spectrum.
Cheng Gao is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He holds a DBA from Harvard Business School and an AB in Economics from Harvard University. His research focuses on innovation strategy, entrepreneurship, and nonmarket strategy, particularly in navigating regulatory uncertainty and disruptive industries. Gao teaches Advanced Competitive Strategy and has received multiple teaching excellence awards. Education: DBA in Strategy, Harvard Business School (2018) AB in Economics with High Honors, Harvard University (2008) Research interests emphasize how firms strategically manage institutional voids and political dependence while innovating in uncertain environments. His work appears in top journals like Administrative Science Quarterly and Strategic Management Journal. Articles often explore themes of corporate political spending, strategic pivots in new ventures, and reputation-based survival in emerging markets. Awards include the Academy of Management Best Dissertation Award (2018), Heizer Award (2018), and recognition as one of Poets & Quants' Top 50 Undergraduate Professors (2020). He advises students in strategy and entrepreneurship and previously worked as a management consultant at Oliver Wyman and as a policy researcher at CSIS. Labs/Teams: Active in Ross School of Business research networks focusing on innovation and institutional strategy. Serves on the board of directors at Barton Malow.
Sebastian Scherer is an Associate Research Professor at the Robotics Institute (RI), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he leads cutting-edge research in autonomous aerial systems and robotics. His work focuses on enabling unmanned rotorcraft to operate safely and efficiently in cluttered, low-altitude, and extreme environments. Education: Ph.D. in Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University (2010) MS in Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University (2007) BS in Computer Science (Minor in Robotics), Carnegie Mellon University (2004) His research interests span robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, SLAM, visual-inertial odometry, energy infrastructure, and public policy . He has made seminal contributions to UAV autonomy, including the first obstacle avoidance for micro aerial vehicles in natural environments (2008) and the first automatic landing zone detection and landing on a full-size helicopter (2010). His recent publications (2023–2025) demonstrate a strong focus on resilient autonomy, multi-robot exploration, foundation models for robotics, and large-scale dataset development. His team has released key datasets like TartanGround , BETTY , and SubT-MRS , and simulation tools like Pegasus Simulator , indicating a systems-level approach to advancing real-world autonomy. The research trends emphasize self-supervised learning, robust perception, risk-aware planning, and multi-modal fusion for off-road and urban environments. Scientific Awards: Popular Science Best of What's New 2010 Award AIAA@Infotech Best Paper Runner-up Award (2010) Siebel Scholar Dr. Scherer has advised numerous students and leads a vibrant research group focused on high-impact robotics applications. He has secured significant grants related to UAV autonomy, energy infrastructure, and urban air mobility. His lab develops experimental infrastructure such as AIrTonomy for testing next-generation autonomous aerial vehicles. He is actively involved in advancing SLAM and localization in extreme environments, notably through participation in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. His team develops large-scale datasets and benchmarking frameworks to push the boundaries of robustness and generalization in mobile robotics.
Yannis Paschalidis is a Distinguished Professor at Boston University with appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Computing & Data Sciences. He serves as Director of the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering. He holds a PhD (1996) and MS (1993) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and a Diploma (1991) from the National Technical University of Athens. His interdisciplinary research spans optimization, control systems, machine learning, and data science with applications in healthcare, autonomous systems, and networks. Key focus areas include developing algorithms for autonomous navigation, healthcare analytics for clinical decision support, energy demand optimization, and computational biology for protein interaction modeling. Recent publications demonstrate strong focus on AI robustness (adversarial defenses, distributional robustness), healthcare applications (cognitive impairment detection, epidemic control), and sustainable systems (power networks, ecological forecasting). Methodological innovations center on reinforcement learning, distributionally robust optimization, and geometric analysis of classical algorithms. CAREER Award (NSF) IEEE Fellow (2014) IFAC Fellow (2022) IBM/IEEE Smarter Planet Award IEEE Computer Society Crowd Sourcing Prize IMIA Best Paper Award Charles DeLisi Award (2020) Distinguished Professor of Engineering As primary advisor to 35 PhD graduates, he leads the Network Optimization & Control (NOC) Lab. His research is funded by NSF, NIH, DoD, ARPA-E, and industry partners, including major grants on Neuro-Autonomy (ONR MURI), pandemic preparedness (ARPA-E NewRAMP), and healthcare AI (NIH QuBBD). He directs the Network Optimization & Control Lab focusing on optimization, learning, and control for autonomous systems, healthcare, and networks. The lab develops fundamental methodologies with applications in robotics, computational medicine, and infrastructure systems.
Christopher Turbill is an Associate Professor in Animal Science at Western Sydney University's School of Science, where he maintains an active research program focused on animal physiological ecology. He is affiliated with the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment and serves as a Principal Investigator on multiple research projects while accepting HDR candidates for supervision. PhD from University of New England (2006) Thesis: Thermoregulatory Ecology of Tree-roosting Bats Supervised by Prof. Fritz Geiser Postdoctoral fellowships from Austrian Science Fund and Australian Research Council (DECRA) Former ecologist with NSW Government Professor Turbill's research integrates thermal and metabolic physiology with behavioral ecology to understand animal-environment interactions. His work has revealed significant ecological consequences of controlled body temperature variation in mammals and birds, linking these processes with metabolic energy expenditure, activity patterns, and life-history strategies. He specializes in bat biology and investigates conflicts between human environmental change and animal conservation requirements. His research keywords include ecophysiology, thermoregulation, energy expenditure, life-history ecology, body temperature, torpor, hibernation, and wildlife conservation. Analysis of Turbill's recent publications reveals a strong focus on thermal biology and conservation physiology, particularly regarding bats and birds. His work examines how animals manage energy through torpor, respond to climate change through thermal regulation, and adapt to anthropogenic disturbances. The research spans field studies of flying-foxes, microbats, and passerine birds across Australian ecosystems, with increasing emphasis on conservation applications related to white-nose syndrome, fire impacts, and wind energy development. Turbill leads significant research projects including the Ecology of the eastern horseshoe bat and its sensitivity to fire impacts (2024-2027), Vulnerability of Australian bats to white-nose syndrome (2021-2026), and Torpor use and burrowing behaviour in an arid zone passerine (2024). His work attracts funding from diverse sources including the Australian Research Council, Department of Planning and Environment, and various conservation organizations. Professor Turbill directs the BatsLab research group, which maintains a virtual hub for bat research at Western Sydney University. His team employs advanced methodologies including thermal imaging, GPS tracking, and physiological monitoring to study animal responses to environmental challenges. Current work focuses on developing conservation interventions for heat-stressed flying-foxes and assessing vulnerabilities of Australian bat species to emerging diseases.
Aya Aboelenien is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at HEC Montréal, a leading business school in Montréal, Canada. Her research focuses on morality and ethics in consumption, consumer culture theory, qualitative methods, aesthetics, and social media. She holds a Ph.D. (Marketing) from Concordia University, an M.B.A. and BBA from the American University in Cairo. Research Interests Aya’s work examines ethical consumption trends, influencer dynamics, and marketplace morality. She explores how brands navigate ethical dilemmas and how social media influencers shape consumer behavior. Her recent studies include analyses of cancel culture’s impact on brands, the ethical dimensions of influencer marketing, and meat consumption’s cultural symbolism. Recent Contributions Her 2024 papers in Journal of Brand Management and Journal of Business Research address brand response strategies to changing market logics and the formation of marketplace moral sentiments. Earlier work in Journal of Marketing Management (2023) and Consumption Markets & Culture (2022) further highlight her focus on ethical influencers and contested consumption practices. Awards & Supervision She received the Best Competitive Paper Award at the 2025 Consumer Culture Theory Conference. Since 2021, she has supervised five MSc projects on topics like green marketing, influencer strategies, and brand repositioning. She teaches courses in consultancy-based marketing research and strategic marketing. Affiliations Aya is affiliated with HEC Montréal’s marketing department and collaborates with global scholars on projects involving consumer ethics and digital marketing innovations.
Javier Alonso-Mora is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Delft University of Technology, specializing in Learning & Autonomous Control. His research focuses on autonomous systems, robotics, motion planning, and transportation logistics, with applications in mobile manipulation, dynamic environments, and urban mobility. He leads key projects such as INTERACT (Intuitive Interaction for Robots among Humans) and ACT (Perceptive Acting Under Uncertainty), exploring human-robot interaction, autonomous vehicles, and healthcare robotics. Notable achievements include an ERC Starting Grant (2022) and a Veni Grant (2017). His work addresses challenges in robot navigation, control systems, and fleet optimization, with contributions to both theoretical advancements and practical implementations. Projects like TRiLOGy focus on sustainable water transportation, while HARMONY advances assistive robotics in healthcare. Alonso-Mora’s research leverages geometric fabrics for motion planning, probabilistic modeling for dynamic environments, and multi-agent coordination. He collaborates internationally and contributes to open-source frameworks for robotics. His recent publications emphasize safety-aware control, instance-aware semantic mapping, and adaptive systems for cluttered environments.
Reade Davis is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Nipissing University's Faculty of Arts and Science, specializing in environmental anthropology and political economy. Research examines: Fisheries management and aquaculture conflicts Neoliberal impacts on small-scale fisheries Protected area conservation politics Risk construction and commodity chains Historical memory in Eastern North America Publications critically analyze marine conservation in Newfoundland, industrial aquaculture resistance, and the socioeconomic effects of gambling in rural communities. His work employs ethnographic methods to document how coastal communities navigate environmental policy changes and economic restructuring. Regional expertise covers Newfoundland and Labrador and Eastern Ontario. Education includes: PhD and MA, Memorial University BA(Hons) and BA, Queen's University
Paolo Gardoni is the Alfredo H. Ang Family Professor and an Excellence Faculty Scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with additional professorial appointments in Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering and Biomedical & Translational Sciences. He also serves as Director of the MAE Center and Editor-in-Chief of Reliability Engineering & System Safety. Education Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, University of California, Berkeley (2002) M.A. in Statistics, University of California, Berkeley (2001) M.Eng. in Structural Engineering, University of Tokyo (1997) Laurea (BS+MS equivalent) in Structural Engineering, Politecnico di Milano (1997) Research Interests Gardoni’s scholarship integrates probabilistic methods with large-scale infrastructure systems to advance reliability, risk, and life-cycle analysis. His work quantifies the performance of deteriorating systems under natural and anthropogenic hazards, models societal impacts of disasters, and develops decision frameworks for sustainable and resilient infrastructure. He also examines ethical, social, and legal dimensions of risk, and investigates optimal strategies for hazard mitigation, disaster recovery, and climate adaptation. Across more than 250 refereed journal papers, he has advanced sub-fields ranging from probabilistic mechanics and earthquake engineering to catastrophe bond pricing and engineering ethics, leveraging tools such as stochastic differential equations, Bayesian networks, and physics-informed machine learning. Awards & Honors Alfredo Ang Award on Risk Analysis and Management of Civil Infrastructure (ASCE, 2021) Best Paper Awards in ASCE Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment (2019) and Geotechnical Research (2018 Telford Premium Prize) Fellowships and named professorships: Alfredo H. Ang Family Professor, Excellence Faculty Scholar, and courtesy or honorary professorships at Tsinghua, IIT Guwahati, Tongji, Jianghan, and Loughborough universities. Research Leadership & Funding Gardoni has secured over $58 million in research funding from NSF, DHS, NIST, USAID, Qatar National Research Fund, and other agencies. He directs the MAE Center—formerly an NSF Engineering Research Center—focused on multi-hazard engineering approaches, and is Editor-in-Chief of Reliability Engineering & System Safety (Elsevier, IF 9.4). He founded and formerly led the journal Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure (Taylor & Francis) and serves on editorial boards of nine additional journals. Advising & Mentorship He has graduated 27 PhD and 35 Master’s students, many of whom now hold faculty positions worldwide. His group maintains an active pipeline of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers working on resilience analytics, infrastructure monitoring, and risk-informed decision-making. Laboratories & Collaborations He leads the MAE Center and is affiliated with the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI) and the Biomedical and Translational Sciences group. International collaborations span the UK (Loughborough), India (IIT Guwahati), and China (Tsinghua, Tongji, Jianghan), fostering cross-disciplinary research in reliability and resilience engineering.
John P. O'Doherty serves as the Fletcher Jones Professor of Decision Neuroscience within Caltech's Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, holding continuous faculty appointments since 2004 (Assistant Professor 2004-07, Associate Professor 2007-09, Professor 2009-present, Fletcher Jones Professor 2021-present). He previously directed the Caltech Brain Imaging Center (2013-17) and maintains affiliations with the T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience. His educational background includes a B.A. from University of Dublin, Trinity College (1996) and D.Phil. from University of Oxford (2000). His research focuses on computational and neural mechanisms of reward-based learning and decision-making , employing fMRI, intracranial recordings, and mathematical modeling to investigate how the brain solves complex decision problems through evolutionarily conserved algorithms. Key areas include Reinforcement learning systems (model-based/model-free arbitration) Observational and social learning mechanisms Neural representation of value, risk, and uncertainty Computational phenotyping of mental disorders Temporal dynamics of goal persistence Analysis of his 2023-2025 publications reveals dominant trends in computational psychiatry (problem gambling, autism traits), hierarchical decision-making, and neuroeconomic modeling of social behavior. His work consistently integrates cross-species computational frameworks with human neuroimaging to identify transdiagnostic mechanisms. While specific awards beyond his endowed professorship aren't detailed, his leadership as Brain Imaging Center Director and prolific high-impact publications demonstrate significant recognition. Current advising includes graduate researcher Sneha Aenugu on goal-persistence projects, with administrative support from Mary A. Martin (mmartin@caltech.edu). His active research program continues to pioneer computational approaches to understanding decision pathologies.
Myriam Dunn Cavelty serves as Deputy Head of Research and Teaching at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich, where she leads significant academic initiatives in cybersecurity and digital governance. She holds formal affiliations as an associate researcher at the Center for Advanced Security Theory at the University of Copenhagen, and has held prestigious visiting positions at Brown University, the University of Darmstadt (as a Mercator Fellow), and the Central European University. Her research expertise centers on how digital technologies influence political behavior and societal values, with particular attention to governance arrangements for digital technologies and their embedding in social, political, and economic processes. Her scholarly contributions span cybersecurity politics, cyber warfare, critical infrastructure protection, and strategic foresight, reflecting an interdisciplinary approach that bridges political science, international relations, and technology studies. Dunn Cavelty's publication record demonstrates remarkable consistency and impact, with works spanning from 2008 to the present. Her research shows an evolution from early analyses of cyber-threat construction to contemporary examinations of AI in security contexts and the political dimensions of cybersecurity governance. Her work consistently addresses the intersection of technological capabilities and political constraints, examining how states and other actors navigate security challenges in the digital domain. Mercator Fellow at the University of Darmstadt Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Security Policy Advisory work for governments, international institutions, and corporations As an academic leader, she has advised numerous doctoral students and supervised research projects examining the political dimensions of cybersecurity. Her work with the Center for Security Studies involves directing research programs that connect academic inquiry with policy relevance, particularly in the areas of risk analysis and strategic foresight. She has established herself as a leading voice in European cybersecurity scholarship, with particular expertise in the Swiss context and broader European security frameworks.
Dr. Frank Rudzicz is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University. His research lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and healthcare, with a focus on developing machine learning systems that improve clinical decision-making, patient outcomes, and accessibility in medicine. He holds a BSc from Concordia University (2004), an MEng from McGill University (2006), and a PhD from the University of Toronto (2011). His research interests include Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Healthcare, Speech Technologies, Explainable AI, and Fairness in ML. Dr. Rudzicz's recent publications span a wide range of topics, including Alzheimer's detection through speech analysis, surgical outcome prediction, mental health monitoring, privacy in AI, and the application of large language models in clinical settings. His work consistently emphasizes ethical AI, patient privacy, and real-world clinical integration. He has received several awards, including a Best Paper award at EMNLP 2020, a Best Student Paper award at ICASSP 2021, and the ISCA Best Student Paper award in 2013. His research has been published in top-tier journals such as Nature Scientific Reports , JAMA Network Open , IEEE Access , and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , as well as leading conferences including NeurIPS, ACL, ICML, and Interspeech. Dr. Rudzicz supervises a dynamic research group working on AI for health, with active projects in voice-based diagnostics, ambient clinical documentation, explainable AI for surgery, and wearable-based monitoring for chronic diseases. He collaborates widely across disciplines, including with clinicians, neuroscientists, ethicists, and public health experts. He is also involved in major initiatives such as the Genetics Navigator study and Bridge2AI-Voice, aiming to build ethically sourced, diverse biomedical datasets. His lab actively explores the societal implications of AI in healthcare, including fairness, trust, and resistance to malicious fine-tuning.
Witold J. Henisz serves as Vice Dean and Faculty Director of the Impact, Value, and Sustainable Business Initiative at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, holding the Deloitte & Touche Professorship in Management. His research centers on political and social risk identification, ESG impact materiality, and corporate diplomacy frameworks that transform stakeholder relationships into strategic assets. His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Business and Public Policy from UC Berkeley's Haas School and an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS. Henisz has served as Departmental Editor at Journal of International Business Studies and Associate Editor at Strategic Management Journal , reflecting his scholarly influence. Research interests converge on geopolitical risk quantification, stakeholder engagement optimization, and sustainable business model innovation. His work demonstrates how political hazards materially impact firm valuation and how corporate diplomacy can mitigate conflict through strategic stakeholder alignment. Recent publications leverage massive media datasets (4+ billion articles) to model populism dynamics, indigenous land conflicts, and ESG-credit risk linkages. Award highlights include the Aspen Institute Ideas Worth Teaching Award (2020), Iron Prof recognition (2019), and Academy of International Business Fellowship. His geostrategy framework Geostrategy by Design (2024) provides executives with actionable methods for navigating geopolitical volatility. Aspen Institute Ideas Worth Teaching Award (2020) Iron Prof recognition (2019) Academy of International Business Fellow (2014-present) Multiple Wharton Excellence in Teaching Awards (2006-2021) Industry Studies Association Best Paper Award (2019) Henisz consults through PRIMA LLC for multinational firms (Rio Tinto, Shell), financial institutions (Eaton Vance, World Bank), and NGOs. His executive education programs train leaders in ESG integration and geopolitical risk management, while his KEROVKA crisis simulation develops real-time strategic response capabilities. Media frequently cites his expertise on ESG controversies, with 50+ major publications featuring his analysis since 2022 including Financial Times , Bloomberg , and Wall Street Journal .
Devis Tuia serves as Associate Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), holding appointments in the Institute of Environmental Engineering (IIE) within the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC). He leads the Environmental Computational Science and Earth Observation Laboratory (ECEO) since 2020 and contributes to EPFL's Doctoral Program in Civil and Environmental Engineering. His academic journey began in Lausanne with studies at UNIL and EPFL, culminating in a PhD in remote sensing from UNIL. Postdoctoral research followed at institutions in Valencia, Boulder, and EPFL, focusing on machine learning model adaptation. He progressed from Research Assistant Professor at University of Zurich to Associate and Full Professor at Wageningen University before joining EPFL. Tuia's research bridges Earth observation with artificial intelligence, specializing in interpretable deep learning for environmental applications. His lab develops algorithms for making remote sensing accessible, with particular emphasis on digital wildlife conservation through automated censuses using drone and satellite imagery. Current projects tackle the 'black box' problem in environmental modeling while advancing spatial intelligence for sustainable urban development. His 2023-2025 publication portfolio reveals three dominant trends: (1) species distribution modeling using incomplete observations, (2) multimodal fusion of satellite/drone data with textual descriptions, and (3) interpretable AI frameworks for environmental decision-making. This work consistently addresses real-world challenges like wildfire forecasting and biodiversity monitoring. As an educator, Tuia supervises 12 current PhD students and has graduated 4 former EPFL doctoral candidates. His teaching portfolio includes Frontiers of Deep Learning for Engineers , Sensing and Spatial Modeling for Earth Observation , and Image Processing for Earth Observation courses. The ECEO laboratory maintains active collaborations with ESA-NASA initiatives and conservation organizations globally.
