Peter Fisher is the Thomas A. Frank (1977) Professor of Physics and head of the Physics Department at MIT. He has extensive experience in both classical and quantum electrodynamics including carrying out the most precise tests of the theory. His current research interests are the experimental detection of dark matter and the development of new kinds of particle detectors. Fisher is a founder of WiTricity, a startup developing wireless energy transmission for commercial use. 

Fisher has also served as an expert witness in court cases related to electromagnetism. In the past, he led a DARPA study of wireless energy transmission between spacecraft as part of the F6 program. He recently served on the Particle Physics Program Prioritization Panel that defined the roadmap for experimental particle physics over the next ten years encompassing about $8 billion in research finds from the DOE and NSF, as well as several other national panels and advisory groups. In 2019, Fisher lead a group to produce the JASON report for NSF, which is the topic of this webinar. 

Xiaodong Zhang is the Robert M. Critchfield Professor in Engineering at the Ohio State University. His research interests focus on data management in computer and distributed systems. Several his research results have been widely adopted in major computing and data processing systems by commercial companies and by open source software communities. He is a recipient of 2020 ACM Microarchitecture Test of Time Award. He received Joel and Ruth Spira Award for Excellence in Education Leadership from the Lutron Foundation to recognize his accomplishment as the Department Chair of Computer Science and Engineering at Ohio State (2006-2018). He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Colorado at Boulder, where he received Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award in 2011. He is a Fellow of the ACM and a Fellow of the IEEE.