Rada Mihalcea is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Michigan Artificial Intelligence Lab. Her research interests are in computational linguistics, with a focus on lexical semantics, multilingual natural language processing, and computational social sciences. She serves or has served on the editorial boards of the Journals of Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluations, Natural Language Engineering, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, and Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics. She was a program co-chair for EMNLP 2009 and ACL 2011, and a general chair for NAACL 2015 and *SEM 2019. She currently serves as the ACL Vice-President Elect. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award (2008) and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers awarded by President Obama (2009). In 2013, she was made an honorary citizen of her hometown of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Nambi Nallasamy, MD is a cornea specialist and Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center. In addition, Dr. Nallasamy is an Assistant Professor of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics in DCM&B. Dr. Nallasamy studied computer science and mathematics at Harvard University prior to studying medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He is a fellowship-trained cornea surgeon, and performs corneal transplants, cataract surgery, and refractive surgery. Dr. Nallasamy also runs a Computational Ophthalmology lab at Kellogg Eye Center, utilizing machine learning and bioinformatics techniques to solve clinical problems in eye disease and eye surgery.

Matthew O’Meara is a new Research Assistant Professor in the Athey lab working on how to control pharmacology simulations using statistical modeling and machine learning. Recently companies have begun to offer libraries of billions of make-on-demand compounds and virtual screening methods can simulate how they bind into a protein of interest. Together these promise to enable developing chemical probes for a wide range of biological processes. However, an outstanding challenge is how to navigate chemical space to robustly identify hits? To tackle this problem, we are developing structured stochastic variational inference methods to design productive screening campaigns. As a research professor I'm looking to co-supervise students and engage in new and on-going projects. I look forward to meeting you!

Michael Sjoding, MD, MS is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and practicing Pulmonary and Critical Care physician at Michigan Medicine. He received his Medical Degree from Loyola University in Chicago and completed his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Chicago. At the University of Michigan, he completed a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship and received a master’s degree in healthcare research. His research focuses on developing novel strategies to improve hospital care for patients with acute respiratory diseases, with a particular focus on improving diagnosis and treatment of the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). His work involves applying machine-learning techniques to routinely available electronic health record, imaging, and physiologic waveform data with the goal of developing systems to assist physicians in clinical decision-making. He is currently funded by an NIH Career Development Award and a NSF Smart and Connected Health award to develop systems to improve early detection of ARDS.

Ralph Weickel is President of the Corporation for Positive Change (www.positivechange.org), founder of the Corporation for Positive Change – Europe and Performance Management. CPC is a global Positive Change consultancy employing the methodology of Appreciative Inquiry and others strength-based methodologies to amplify performance and organizational strengths.

Bringing 30+ years-experience across a broad range of industries, Ralph and his Team guide organizations to identify and leverage core strengths to permanently improve performance and co-create flourishing environments. CPC and its sister organizations specialize in co-creating success with organizations in the areas of leadership, organizational and team development, change initiatives, strategic planning, operational efficiency, employee engagement, and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit along with lean system implementation. Ralph serves as an positive change executive coach known for his holistic and co-creative approach. Being a native of Germany, Ralph is also fluent in German, in addition to English.