Keynote Speakers

Industry Keynote: Misha Bilenko

VP, Applied Research, Google DeepMind

Title: From models to products: first lessons from shipping LLMs at scale

Misha Bilenko is VP of Applied Research at Google DeepMind, where he has just started working on accelerating the adoption of frontier AI in Google products. Before that, he was Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Azure AI, where he worked on developing small language and vision models, model adaptation algorithms and tools, technical collaborations with OpenAI, and AI model adoption by Microsoft products. Before that, he worked at Yandex on a range of AI products and services, and at Microsoft’s Cloud+Enterprise division and Microsoft Research. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin.

Academia Keynote: Ahmed Abbasi

Joe and Jane Giovanini Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, University of Notre Dame

Title: Data Science Research in an AI-Enabled World

Abstract: Has the common task framework led machine learning research astray? Is responsible AI impossible AI? Why is machine learning crucial to the future of digital experimentation that informs AI-related decisions and policies? In this talk, I use several recent editorials and articles, as well as work in progress, to answer these questions and motivate important research directions for data science researchers in the age of AI. 

Ahmed Abbasi is the Joe and Jane Giovanini Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations at the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. He serves as Director of the Analytics Ph.D. program and Co-Director of the Human-centered Analytics Lab. Ahmed completed his Ph.D. work in Information Systems at the University of Arizona’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab. He attained an M.B.A. and B.S. in Information Technology from Virginia Tech. His research interests relate to text and predictive analytics. Ahmed has published nearly one hundred articles in journals and conferences, including several in top-tier outlets such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research (ISR), Journal of MIS, ACM TOIS, IEEE TKDE, and IEEE Intelligent Systems. His work has been funded by over a dozen grants from the National Science Foundation and industry partners such as Microsoft, eBay, Deloitte, and Oracle. Ahmed serves as Senior Editor for ISR and Associate Editor for ACM TMIS and IEEE Intelligent Systems. He is a recipient of the IEEE Technical Achievement Award, INFORMS Design Science Award, and IBM Faculty Award. Ahmed’s work has been featured in various media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, the Associated Press, WIRED, CBS, and Fox.