The Speakers

Dr. Kayvan Najarian is a professor at departments of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, Emergency Medicine, and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of British Columbia, Canada. He is currently serving as the director of Biomedical and Clinical Informatics Lab (BCIL) at University of Michigan with about 20 data science researchers (faculty, research faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduate students) and about 12 clinical researchers in different fields of medicine. Dr. Najarian is also serving as Associate Director of a campus-wide institute at University of Michigan called Michigan Institute for Data Sciences (MIDAS). This institute promotes data sciences across three campuses of University of Michigan. Dr. Najarian is also serving as an Associate Director of another institute at University of Michigan called The Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation, that focuses on designing advanced solutions in the field of trauma and critical care. The focus of Dr. Najarian’s research has been on using advanced data science techniques such as signal/image processing and machine learning methods to design computer-assisted medical decision-making systems to improve the quality of care provided to patients and to reduce the costs of healthcare. His research work has resulted in over 350 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications as well as over 40 patents and patent applications. Dr Najarian’s team has designed clinical decision support systems to manage complications such as heart failure, traumatic brain injury, sepsis, GI diseases and ARDS. Several decision support systems created by his group have been licensed to industry partners. For over the last two decades, Dr. Najarian’s research has been continuously funded by federal agencies such as NSF, NIH and DoD as well as private companies such as Janssen and Toyota. He has served as mentor for over 33 PhD students and 17 postdoctoral and clinical researchers, including NIH funded T-32, F-31 and K- awarded mentees.

A cybersecurity researcher/engineer, Obinna Igbe, currently works at Google and has worked for multiple research institutions and fortune 50 tech companies in the past. He holds a PhD in cybersecurity from the City University of New York (CUNY) and has published multiple articles and conference papers in the security domain. His research interests include the security of critical infrastructures like smart grids and the design and implementation of systems to combat cyber threats targeting organizations.