ATONATON is led by Dr. Madeline Gannon, a multidisciplinary designer and inventor forging new futures for human-robot relations. Also known as “The Robot Whisperer”, Gannon blends techniques in art, design, computer science, and robotics to convince robots to do things they were never intended to do: from transforming giant industrial robots into living, breathing mechanical creatures, to taming hordes of autonomous machines to behave like a pack of animals.

Gannon believes that technology is a cultural medium, and tunes her work to engage communities across science and society. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Copernicus Science Centre, and has been exhibited at international cultural institutions, published at academic conferences, and profiled at global media outlets, such as the BBC, the Guardian, FT, the Science Channel, WIRED, FastCompany, Dezeen, and The Verge.

Dr. Gannon has been a Knight Foundation Awardee, a World Economic Forum Cultural Leader, a Robotics & AI Researcher at NVIDIA, and an artist in residence at ETH Zurich, Autodesk Pier 9, and the Carnegie Mellon STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. She is known as one of the ‘Top 10 Women in Robotics Industry‘ and ‘World’s 50 Most Renowned Women in Robotics’ according to Analytics Insight. Gannon holds a M.Arch from Florida International University, and a Ph.D. in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Panelists

Vanessa Aguiar-Pulido, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Department of Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences

ADJUNCT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Weill Cornell Medicine Neuroscience

PI, Data Science and Computational Biology Lab (vaguiarpulido.github.io)

Dr. Aguiar-Pulido is passionate about problem solving in biomedical research, with a focus on developing tools and algorithms that will impact diagnosis and therapeutics of rare and complex genetic disorders. Her background and interests include big data analytics, machine learning, AI, bioinformatics, neuroscience, data mining, ontologies, biomedical data integration, health informatics, epigenetics, and omics in general.

Her DSaCB Lab is at the interface of Computer Science and Biomedical Sciences, and her research focuses on understanding the underlying genetic causes of monogenic and complex disorders, how these causes can be influenced by environmental factors, and how these findings can be applied to clinical practice.

Mingzhe Chen, PhD

KNIGHT FOUNDATION CHAIR IN DATA SCIENCE AND AI

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

CORE FACULTY MEMBER, AI + Machine Learning, Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC)

Dr. Chen received his PhD from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in Beijing, China (2019). From 2016-19, he was a Visiting Researcher at the Virginia Tech Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. From 2019-21, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Princeton’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2022, he worked as an AI Researcher at Ericsson Research, USA. His research interests include federated learning, reinforcement learning, virtual reality, unmanned aerial vehicles, and the Internet of Things.

Dr. Chen received two IEEE Communication Society paper awards including the 2021 Young Author Best Paper Award, the 2022 Fred W. Ellersick Prize Award, and three conference best paper awards at IEEE ICC and IEEE GLOBECOM (2020), and IEEE WCNC (2021).

Dr. Chen currently serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, and IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in Communications and Networking. Previously, he guest edited a special issue on Distributed Learning over Wireless Edge Networks for IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC).

Clay Ewing, MFA

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, Department of Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences

DIRECTOR, NERDLab.miami

CREATOR, Queso—a classroom management system for educators who want to run a gameful course.

Prof. Ewing is a creative technologist with a focus on serious games, on implementing game mechanics into real-world applications, and on social justice. As an award-winning game designer and developer, his games have tackled issues such as vector-borne diseases, the cost of health care, social safety nets, and labor practices. His most recent game, “Unsavory,” was the winner of a special emphasis award at the Serious Games Showcase and Challenge for its use of social media crowdsourcing for peer learning.

Prof. Ewing has worked with numerous nonprofits including Red Cross Red Crescent, Open Society Foundations, ROC United, Oxfam, and the AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. His projects have been covered by The Huffington Post, NPR, Forbes, and The Consumerist.

Andres Sawicki, JD

PROFESSOR OF LAW, School of Law

DIRECTOR, Business of Innovation, Law, and Technology Concentration

CO-DIRECTOR, Data Ethics + Society, Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC)

Prof. Sawicki teaches in the area of intellectual property. His primary research projects explore the extent to which IP can help solve problems in the production of inventions and expressive works. He’s particularly interested in the complex psychology of creativity and in the difficulty of coordinating multiple creative collaborators. His research also examines the interaction among distinct patent doctrines. His work has been published by leading journals, including Cornell Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, and The University of Chicago Law Review, among others. Prof. Sawicki graduated from MIT with S.B. degrees in Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Science, Technology, & Society. He then earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School (2006), where he was an Articles Editor for the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.

After graduation, he clerked for the Honorable Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From 2007-10, he worked as an associate in the NY office of Kirkland & Ellis, LLP. His practice focused on intellectual property litigation, especially Hatch-Waxman Act pharmaceutical patent cases. Prior to his appointment at UM, he was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School.

Zheng Wang, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, Department of Computer Science, Department of Biology

Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center | Z. Wang Lab

Dr. Wang’s research expertise is in 3D genome structure reconstruction and analysis (since 2010), protein structure prediction (since 2006), protein function prediction (since 2010), and complex biological network analysis (since 2010). His Lab has experience in analyzing various biological and next-generation sequencing data and applying machine learning algorithms and other algorithms or software to biomedical data. For example, they developed deep learning algorithms to forecast the Hi-C profiles at future time points based on the past and current Hi-C profiles, predict bp-specific single-cell DNA methylation status based on single-cell Hi-C data, predict ChIA-PET contacts from Hi-C data, predict protein functions in terms of GO terms solely based on amino acid sequence, reconstruct the whole-genome 3D structures of single-cells, and predict the qualities of predicted protein structures. Moreover, the lab has collaborated with neuroscientists, cancer biologists, and other bioinformatics scientists on high-impact research.

Moderator

Nick Tsinoremas, PhD

VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH COMPUTING AND DATA

FOUNDING DIRECTOR, Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC)

PROFESSOR, Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Computer Science, Health Informatics and Data Science, and Orthopaedics

At the University of Miami, Dr. Tsinoremas is the Vice Provost for Research Computing and Data and the Founding Director of the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC), which was established to catalyze data-intensive research in fields ranging from medicine to earth sciences, urban planning, digital humanities, and business. Before joining UM, he served as Head of Informatics and Cheminformatics at The Scripps Research Institute—Florida. In the past, he was the Director of Computational Genomics and Genomic Discovery at Rosetta/Merck where he directed the project that combined data science and computational approaches with gene expression profiling, high-throughput screening, and genetics to discover, prioritize, and define new drug targets and novel therapeutics.

Prior to working for Merck Research Laboratories (MRL)/Rosetta, Dr. Tsinoremas was the Vice-President of Genomics at DoubleTwist Inc., where he determined the scientific direction and development of DoubleTwist’s bioinformatics applications and databases. At that time, he also led a team that developed the first annotation of the Human Genome.

Dr. Tsinoremas received his B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Athens, Greece, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Leeds, U.K. His research focus includes projects that combine data science and computational approaches; informatics, digital health, clinical genomics, molecular biology, computational biology, and drug discovery.