Panel
Panel topic
"How to build trust in Collaborative Assistants and Robotics to solve SC challenges with user-centered testing and validation"
Laura Boccanfuso
Laura is founder and CEO of Van Robotics, a social robotics company headquartered in Columbia, SC that builds AI-enabled tutors. Laura received her PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Carolina and later worked in the Yale University Social Robotics Lab and Child Study Center as a Postdoctoral researcher and Associate Research Scientist. She completed the Yale Venture Creation Program in 2016, officially launched the company in 2017 and was selected for the Techstars Accelerator in Austin later that year. Laura’s work focuses on wholistic robot-assisted learning, incorporating best practices in human-robot interaction that leverage sound educational pedagogy, cognitive and learning science and machine learning techniques to accelerate learning.
Meera Narasimhan
Meera Narasimhan, MD is Professor and Chair in the Department of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Prisma Health (Midlands). She serves as the Special Advisor to Uof SC President for Health Innovations and Economic Development. She also serves on faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.
Dr. Narasimhan has championed mental health awareness, legislations with patient advocacy Groups and technology driven initiatives working with public, private, academic partners in the state and beyond. She has been involved with innovative treatment approaches to addressing health challenges in the state, nationally and globally. She has an excellent track- record of fostering public-private-academic partnership(s) and has demonstrated her ability to think outside the box of traditional approaches to address basic public health service needs of the community, capture valuable cost and quality data to improve health outcomes. She serves on the SC Telehealth Alliance, Palmetto Care Connection Board (Broad Band), SC Suicide Prevention Coalition and the American Psychiatric Association Telehealth Steering Committee. She has received several National Institutes of Health, PCORI, industry, foundation grants for clinical, translational and technology driven initiatives.
Dr. Narasimhan has received numerous prestigious national and international awards from several institutions and organizations globally including the American Psychiatric Association, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, Yale University, American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, the Indo American Psychiatric Association, South Carolina Department of Mental Health, Uof SC-School of Medicine and Prisma Health. In 2014 she received the “Hind Rattan Award”, “Jewel of India” an Indian diaspora award for outstanding global health contributions. She has championed technology driven healthcare initiatives to improve access and affordability and these programs have been awarded the “Psychiatric Services Achievement Award” from the American Psychiatric Association and Harvard Ash Bright Ideas award. She was honored with the South Carolina Community Innovator Award for Telehealth at the SC Telehealth Summit in 2017 and the C3 award for Care, Compassion and Collaboration from Prisma Health in 2019.
Prof. Bryant Walker Smith
Bryant Walker Smith is an associate professor in the School of Law and (by courtesy) the School of Engineering at the University of South Carolina. He is also an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and co-director of the University of Michigan Project on Law and Mobility. He previously led the Emerging Technology Law Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies and served on the US Department of Transportation's Advisory Committee on Automation in Transportation.
Trained as a lawyer and an engineer, Bryant advises cities, states, countries, and the United Nations on emerging transport technologies. He coauthored the globally influential levels of driving automation, drafted the leading model law for automated driving in the United States, and taught the first legal courses dedicated to automated driving (in 2012), hyperloops, and flying taxis. His students have developed best practices for regulating scooters, and he is writing on what it means to be a trustworthy company. His publications are available at newlypossible.org.
Before joining the University of South Carolina, Bryant led the legal aspects of automated driving program at Stanford University, clerked for the Hon. Evan J. Wallach at the United States Court of International Trade, and worked as a fellow at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He holds both an LL.M. in International Legal Studies and a J.D. (cum laude) from New York University School of Law and a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin. Prior to his legal career, Bryant worked as a transportation engineer.
Amit Sheth
Professor Sheth's current interests include Artificial Intelligence (esp. knowledge graphs, NLP, deep learning, knowledge-enhanced learning, conversational AI- especially chatbots for health and education), Semantic Web, Physical/IoT-Cyber-Social-Clinical Big Data, Augmented Personalized Health, AI and Big Data applications (in health and life sciences, social good, disaster management, etc.).
Biplav Srivastava (moderator)
Biplav Srivastava is a Professor at the Artificial Intelligence Institute, University of South Carolina and is also a Leshner Fellow for 2020-2021.