Symposium Presenters

Jay A. Perman became chancellor of the University System of Maryland in January 2020. The System enrolls 176,000 students in 12 public universities across the state and confers eight in every 10 bachelor’s degrees awarded in Maryland.

Dr. Perman’s guiding priority is opening access to college, ensuring that every Marylander who wants a higher education can get one. Under his leadership, the USM has increased enrollment among underrepresented students, improved retention and graduation rates, and grown to record highs the amount of university aid awarded to students with financial need.

The USM is among the country’s top public research systems, with $1.81 billion in annual research and sponsored program expenditures, an increase of 41% over Dr. Perman’s tenure. Tech transfer and commercialization metrics have likewise grown: In FY24, 114 patents were issued Systemwide, No. 8 among U.S. public institutions; 39 licenses and options were executed on the System’s IP; and 20 companies were created based on USM technologies. That same year, USM venture support helped launch 182 startups, and USM research parks—employing 9,000 people in 200 companies—commercialized innovations advancing health, education, security, and sustainability.

Prior to his appointment as chancellor, Dr. Perman was, for a decade, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. A pediatric gastroenterologist, he still practices medicine once a week, teaching team-based health care to students at UMB and across the USM.

Dr. Perman has served in faculty and leadership positions at UC San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of Kentucky, where he was dean of the College of Medicine.

He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Northwestern University. After his residency in pediatrics at Northwestern’s Children’s Memorial Hospital, he completed a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at Harvard Medical School and the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston.

TBA

Brian Kennedy is a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, where he studies public views on science issues and the implications of science for society. He is an expert on public opinion on climate, energy and environmental issues and public trust in science. He has authored numerous publications on these two topics in his decade at the Pew Research Center.  

Kennedy frequently discusses research on public opinion on climate, energy and environmental issues and public trust in science with the media and regularly presents research on these topics to outside groups, such as academic and policy audiences.

He received his Ph.D. in political science at Michigan State University, where his work focused on cross-national attitudes about climate change. Kennedy received his bachelor’s degree at Davidson College. 

Megan Nicholson is a senior editor of Issues in Science and Technology, a quarterly policy journal co-published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) and Arizona State University. In its pages and through its podcast and events, Issues highlights perspectives from researchers, business and academic leaders, local and federal government leaders, and others with a stake in public policy to advance deeper engagement around the ways science and technology shape society. Before joining Issues, Megan was a senior program officer with the National Academies’ Government-University-Industry-Philanthropy Research Roundtable. She also previously held positions at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility. Megan has a B.A. in Economics and Environmental Studies from Mount Holyoke College. 

Michael Sandler was appointed Vice Chancellor for Communications and Marketing by Chancellor Jay Perman in June 2024. Sandler is responsible for developing and implementing communications and branding strategies that support, advance and protect the system’s reputation, position the USM’s visibility in the marketplace, and define and refine the USM’s voice.

He serves as a strategic advisor to the chancellor, the leadership team and the Board of Regents, and acts as a spokesperson for the system. Additionally, he leads the USM Communications Council and serves as conveyor and partner to campus communications colleagues.

Sandler is a veteran communications executive and media strategist with nearly three decades of experience in higher education, media and business. He founded EM3 Communications, a strategic communications and reputation management consultancy based in Aurora, Colorado. Prior to that, he served as Vice President for Communications at George Mason University and the University of Colorado System. In those roles, he supported five university presidents and two complex governing boards, one made up of elected officials and the other representatives appointed by the governor. 

Prior to his work in higher education, Michael spent two decades working as a reporter and editor at The Associated Press, The Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Tampa Bay Times, The Hill and Congressional Quarterly.  He covered the U.S. Senate, interviewed two U.S. Presidents and led the AP's coverage of the recovery from the Great Recession.

He has also served on the executive committee for the Council of Strategic Communications at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), is a graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia School of Journalism and spent two years serving in the U.S. Peace Corps as a small business development volunteer in Bolivia.

Fabio Anzà completed his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Oxford in 2018, where he worked on applications of quantum information theory to the foundations of statistical mechanics and quantum gravity. In 2018, he moved to the Complexity Sciences Center at the University of California, Davis, as a Templeton Independent Research Fellow. He then served as a Research Assistant Professor at the InQubator for Quantum Simulations at the University of Washington, Seattle. Between 2022 and 2024, he took a break from his academic career and founded Kernel Science: a scientific consulting company operating at the interface of AI and science. In 2024, he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he leads the Complex Quantum Systems research group. He also serves as Chief Technology Officer of the Foundational Questions Institute (FQxI). His research focuses on the physics of information, geometric quantum mechanics, and foundational questions about the thermodynamic emergence of spacetime from quantum gravity. He is also actively developing AI-driven tools for scientific research, working on two fronts: agentic systems for automating and accelerating physics workflows, and the use of Lean 4 for the formal verification of physical results.

Kimberly Williams a bioarchaeologist and genetic epidemiologist whose  current research is focused on mortuary and landscape archaeology in Southeastern Arabia. She has a wide range of research experience ranging from large database development, skeletal biology, landscape archaeology, and genetic epidemiology of growth and development in modern populations. She currently focuses on questions about prehistoric mortuary ritual, funerary landscape formation and use, interred material culture, and archaeological human skeletal remains all recovered through survey and excavation. This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and a number of foundation grants. It has led to longstanding collaboration in the Arabian Gulf with the Department of Archaeology, Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman. At Temple University is Professor and department chair in the Department of Anthropology. As a longstanding member of Temple's Institutional Review Board, she is interested in the intersection of research and ethics, especially in international contexts.

Dr. Bill Dennison is a Professor of Marine Science and Vice President for Science Application for the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Since 2003, has served as Vice President for Science Application and led the Integration and Application Network (IAN), charged to inspire, manage and produce timely syntheses and assessments on key environmental issues with a special emphasis on Chesapeake Bay and its waters. He has published hundreds of papers and books on coastal ecosystem ecology and has presented at  international, national, and regional meetings, and at various universities, research institutions, and government agencies. He was a research assistant professor at UMCES’ Horn Point Laboratory from 1987-1992 before spending 10 years at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where he developed an active Marine Botany group with strong links to the Healthy Waterways Campaign for Moreton Bay. He rejoined UMCES in 2002 to develop the Integration and Application Network. He holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Chicago, a post-doc in coastal marine science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, an M.S. in biological oceanography from the University of Alaska, and a B.A. in environmental science from Western Michigan University.

Dillon Mahmoudi is an urban and economic geographer, researcher, and educator committed to advancing spatial justice and critical mapping at the intersection of technology, cities, and uneven development. As an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, he investigates the material politics of digital capitalism—charting how infrastructures such as data centers, algorithms, and smart city initiatives reshape urban landscapes, reproduce inequalities, and redefine everyday life. Drawing insight from heterodox political economy, feminist geography, and the Black radical tradition, he fosters collaboration across disciplines and communities to interrogate race, labor, and environmental impacts embedded in digital systems. His work is driven by a belief in participatory research and collective transformation, mentoring diverse student cohorts and collaborating with organizations on projects ranging from critical GIS and citizen science gaps to AI infrastructure and urban environmental governance. Recognition for his teaching, research, and service includes awards for community engagement and leadership in geography, alongside editorial roles in Urban Geography and Big Data & Society, and ongoing leadership of the Urban Geography Specialty Group of the AAG. He is passionate about challenging dominant digital regimes and making visible the forces that structure, obscure, and reconfigure urban, rural, and data landscapes today.