Speaker Bios and Snapshots
Philip Asare is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Swanson Fellow in the Sciences and Engineering at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in the USA. He is currently a Visiting Scholar/Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Ryerson University during his leave from Bucknell for the 2017-18 academic year. His research interests are in the general are of cyber-physical systems with medicine being one of his primary application areas. He was a Scholar-in-Residence at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the 2012-13 academic year working with researchers in the Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories on regulatory approaches for emerging mobile connected medical devices. His work in this area has received a best student paper and best paper award at the Interncation Conference on Body Area Networks (BodyNets). He most recently co-organize the Prototype to Patient Treatment workshop as part of the 2016 Annual Wireless Health Conference through the National Science Foundation Nanosystems Engineering Research Center (NERC) for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST). Asare is a member of the IEEE and its Computer Society and Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). He is also a member of the ACM and its Special Interest Group on Embedded Systems (SIGBED).
Roger Chamberlain has been a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis since 1989. He currently serves as Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. Dr. Chamberlain's research interests include specialized computer architectures for a variety of applications (e.g., astrophysics and biology), high-performance parallel and distributed application development, energy-efficient computation, and high-capacity I/O systems. He teaches in the areas of digital systems, parallel processing, computer architecture, embedded systems and reconfigurable logic. Dr. Chamberlain works with Exegy, Inc. and VelociData, Inc., two St. Louis firms commercializing university technology for data analysis. He also engages in significant consulting activities with BECS Technology, a St. Louis firm manufacturing microprocessor-based controls for a number of interesting application areas. He helped form all three of the above companies.
Alex Cooke is the department’s Counsellor based at the Australian Embassy and Permanent Mission to the European Union in Brussels. Dr. Cooke’s role is to manage the relationship between Australia and European countries in relation to innovation, industry, science, research, education and resources matters, advance the portfolio’s interests across Europe and facilitate bilateral relationships and dialogue between Australia and European countries. Dr. Cooke has most recently worked in the Science Policy Branch of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, with responsibility for domestic and international science matters, and as Senior Science Adviser to the Hon Greg Hunt MP, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. Dr. Cooke supported the development of science-related measures under the Australian Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda, including the Global Innovation Strategy and policies to inspire Australians to engage with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Dr. Cooke has worked with Australia’s Chief Scientist to provide advice to Government on a range of education, science and innovation policies. Prior to that Dr. Cooke has worked in research and higher education policy in the Department of Education and the Australian Research Council, where he supported the creation of the Excellence in Research for Australia initiative. Dr. Cooke has a PhD in Philosophy from Monash University.
David Corman is a Program Director and leader of the Cyber-Physical Systems and the Smart and Connected Communities Programs at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Corman has a broad range of research interests spanning many technologies fundamental to CPS application areas including transportation, energy, medical devices, and manufacturing. Dr. Corman has extensive industrial experience in the development, design, and manufacture of CPS systems. Dr. Corman received the Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland.
Chris Gill has been with Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) since 1997, first as a research associate and since 2001 as a member of the faculty. He gained significant industry experience working for companies such as SBC Communications (now AT&T), Teknivent Corp., Saleskit Software and Prudential Group Health. As an undergraduate student at WashU, Professor Gill was a National Merit Scholar and graduated cum laude in English and Biology. A National Science Foundation CAREER award recipient, Professor Gill emphasizes a laboratory-based teaching approach, with personal attention to how students combine fundamentals of computer science with state-of-the-art software engineering techniques, to gain expertise and hands-on experience in designing and implementing high quality software.
Ed Griffor is the Associate Director for Cyber-Physical Systems of the Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program Office of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Dr. Griffor was one of the three original Walter P. Chrysler Technical Fellows with DaimlerChrysler, Chrysler Group and Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles. He was chosen Chair of the Chrysler Technology Council in 2013-15 and has served as Chair of The MIT Alliance. Dr. Griffor completed doctoral studies in Mathematics at MIT, was named ‘NSF/NATO Postdoctoral Fellow in Science and Engineering’ and was awarded habilitation in Mathematics and Engineering at the University of Oslo. He later held faculty positions at the University of Oslo in Norway, Uppsala University in Sweden, the Catholic University of Santiago Chile. Dr. Griffor is an expert in the use of mathematical methods for the assurance of controls and embedded software, used in the design of adaptive controls for Cyber Physical Systems. In addition to his work in industry, Dr. Griffor is Adjunct Professor at the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics of Wayne State University School of Medicine. He has served on the Board of Directors of MCASTL, the US Department of Transportation funded Michigan Center for Advancing Safe Transportation throughout the Lifespan, and as industry representative to the VIIC (Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Consortium). Since joining NIST, Dr. Griffor has led efforts related to a unified mathematics of CPS, CPS Assurance and related international collaborations with industry and academia in Europe and the US. Dr. Griffor and his writer and diplomat wife, Mariela Griffor, live with their two daughters in Grosse Pointe Park, MI and Gaithersburg, MD in the USA.
John Hatcliff is a University Distinguished Professor at Kansas State University working in the areas of safety-critical systems, software architectures, and software verification and certification. He leads the Laboratory on Static Analysis and Transformation of Software (SAnToS Lab), which has received over $14million in research funding since 2000 from the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, NASA, NIH, and companies including Lockheed, Rockwell Collins, Intel, and IBM. Dr. Hatcliff received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early CAREER Award in 1997 for his research on program specialization. SAnToS Researchers were members of the NASA Java Pathfinder Team that in 2003 received NASA's Turning Goals Into Reality (TGIR) Award -- one of fifteen awards given to NASA projects in 2003 that best demonstrated progress toward NASA's mission objectives. In 2010, SAnToS Researchers received two major professional society awards -- ACM SIGSOFT's prestigious Impact Paper Award, and International Conference of Software Engineering (ICSE) Most Influential Paper Award for their original paper on the Bandera software model-checking framework. Both of these awards are retrospective awards given by the world's primary professional organization of software engineers and the world's largest software engineering conference to the paper that has had the greatest impact on the theory and practice of software engineering in the ten years since its publication. Dr. Hatcliff is co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT), and co-chair of the High-Confidence Systems and Software Conference for 2014 and 2015. He co-chairs the Architecture Requirements Working Group of the AAMI / UL 2800 Joint Committee that is developing safety standards for medical device interoperability. He has been an active member of the Medical Device Interoperability Safety Working Group that is currently interacting with the FDA on interoperability safety principles under the IDE program, and he is a member of the NIH/NIBIB interoperability research project led by Dr. Julian Goldman from the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT).
Naira Hovakimyan received her MS degree in Theoretical Mechanics and Applied Mathematics in 1988 from Yerevan State University in Armenia. She got her Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics in 1992 from the Institute of Applied Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, majoring in optimal control and differential games. Before joining the faculty of UIUC in 2008, she spent time as a research scientist at Stuttgart University in Germany, French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) in France, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and she was on faculty of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering of Virginia Tech from 2003 to 2008. She is currently a W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering at UIUC. In 2015 she was named inaugural director for Intelligent Robotics Lab of Coordinated Science Laboratory at UIUC. She has co-authored two books, six patents and more than 350 refereed publications. She was the recipient of the SICE International scholarship for the best paper of a young investigator in the VII ISDG Symposium (Japan, 1996), the 2011 recipient of AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight award, the 2015 recipient of SWE Achievement Award, and the 2017 recipient of IEEE CSS Award for Technical Excellence in Aerospace Controls. In 2014 she was awarded the Humboldt prize for her lifetime achievements. In 2015, she was awarded the UIUC Engineering Council award for Excellence in Advising. She is Fellow and life member of AIAA, a Fellow of IEEE, and a member of SIAM, AMS, SWE, ASME and ISDG. She is cofounder and chief scientist of IntelinAir. Her work in robotics for elderly care was featured in the New York Times, on Fox TV and CNBC. Her research interests are in control and optimization, autonomous systems, neural networks, game theory and their applications in aerospace, robotics, mechanical, agricultural, electrical, petroleum, biomedical engineering and elderly care.
Krishna Kant is currently a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Earlier he was a research professor at George Mason University and served as a program director in computer, information science and engineering (CISE) directorate of National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2008-2013. At NSF, he was also instrumental in the development and running of NSF wide sustainability initiative called SEES (science, engineering and education for sustainability). His current areas of research include sustainability and energy efficiency in data centers, configuration robustness and security, and application of computing technologies to larger sustainability problems. He has also served at Northwestern University, Penn State University, Bell Labs, Bellcore, and Intel, and carries a combined 34 years of experience in academia, industry, and government. He has published in a wide variety of areas in computer science, authored a graduate textbook on performance modeling of computer systems, and coedited two books on infrastructure and cloud computing security. He is a Fellow of IEEE.
Bruce Krogh is professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and founding director of Carnegie Mellon University Africa, a branch of Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering in Kigali, Rwanda. Throughout his career, Professor Krogh’s research has focused on the integration of computation, communication and control in a number of areas, including robotics, manufacturing, and energy management systems. He has been a consultant to companies in the aircraft and automotive industries and has held visiting faculty positions Germany and France. His current research focuses on leveraging smart grid technologies to realize new operating strategies and business models for electrical power systems in emerging economies. He has served as the editor of several journals and conference proceedings and was founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Distinguished Member of the IEEE Control Systems Society.
Akira Maeda eceived degrees of BS and MS of Physics from Tokyo University, Japan, and also Dr of Engineering from the university. He joined Systems Development Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd. in 1981. His major work at the laboratory is related to satellite and medical image processing systems and intelligent information processing systems. He joined Information and Control Systems Company as a Chief Technology Officer in 2010. Since then he leads many projects of distributed and intelligent information and control system technologies, especially in the field of smart grid/city/community. He has been working as a JST program officer since February 2017.
Pieter Mosterman is Chief Research Scientist and Director of the Advanced Research & Technology Office of MathWorks in Natick, MA where he works on computational modeling, simulation, and code generation technologies. He also holds an Adjunct Professor position at the School of Computer Science of McGill University. Before, he was a Research Associate at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen. He has a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, and a M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Twente, Netherlands. His primary research interests are in Computer Automated Multiparadigm Modeling (CAMPaM) with principal applications in design automation, training systems, and fault detection, isolation, and reconfiguration. Dr. Mosterman designed the Electronics Laboratory Simulator that was nominated for The Computerworld Smithsonian Award by Microsoft Corporation in 1994. In 2003, he was awarded the IMechE Donald Julius Groen Prize for his paper on the hybrid bond graph modeling and simulation environment HYBRSIM. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Service Award of The Society for Modeling and Simulation International(SCS) for his services as Editor-in-Chief of SIMULATION: Transactions of SCS. Dr. Mosterman was Guest Editor for special issues on CAMPaM of SIMULATION, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology (TCST), and ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation. He is on the Editorial Advisory Board of SIMULATION and a CRC Press Series Editor for books on Computational Analysis, Synthesis, and Design of Dynamic Systems. He has chaired over thirty scientific events, served on over a hundred International Program Committees, published over a hundred peer reviewed papers, is inventor on over a hundred awarded patents, and is Editor of books on Model-Based Design for Embedded Systems, Discrete-Event Modeling and Simulation: Theory and Applications, Model-Based Testing for Embedded Systems, Real-time Simulation Technologies: Principles, Methodologies, and Applications, andComputation for Humanity: Information Technology to Advance Society.
Tho Nguyen manages the VP for IT’s flagship ACCORD Advanced Cyberinstrument Program. ACCORD is a complete research computing environment that integrates HPC/HTC with compliance-driven security provisions to protect sensitive data. The ACCORD program includes a Consortium of ten (and growing) leading Virginia universities and research institutions to deploy this next generation cyberinfrastructure supporting data-enabled research across the Commonwealth. In addition to his appointment in the VP for IT Office, Tho is concurrently a Senior Research Program Officer in the Department of Computer Science where he is primarily responsible for project and program development in Cyber-Physical Systems and Software/Hardware Systems Research. Tho’s past work focused on sensing, modeling, and application of controls for large-scale environmental systems. His current research interests include secured cyberinfrastructure for “data-collaborations”, and extending cyber-physical systems theory and technologies to mitigate the impact of disruptions to interdependent systems (i.e., resiliency). Tho has also had extensive international research experience and has received funding from NSF, USAID, and VEF for his international work. He is currently leading the effort to develop SCICADA, a secured and lightweight research data sharing platform deployed in the Lower Mekong region. Tho earned his PhD from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) in the Department of Electrical Engineering (Systems, Controls & Robotics) in 2009. Prior to joining UVA, Tho served as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was appointed to the National Science Foundation, where he worked on the Cyber-Physical Systems Program (2013-2015). He is also a former J. William Fulbright Fellow to Vietnam (2006-2007).
Armen Orujyan is the founding CEO of the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST), and the founder and former chairman of Athgo. Orujyan earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Political Science from University of California, Los Angeles and received his MA and PhD from the School of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University (CGU). Orujyan founded Athgo in 1999 and led the organization to establish a recurring Global Innovation Forum at the United Nations and the World Bank headquarters. Orujyan joined the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology in 2016 as the founding CEO. Under Orujyan's leadership, the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology has launched a fellowship for the top 10% of all PhD students in STEM in Armenia and established the first Science and Technology Angels Network in Armenia. In 2006, Orujyan became a founding member of the UN’s Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID). He was co-Chairman of GAID and served as such until 2013. He also held a position as a UN e-Leader for ICT and Youth and was chosen as one of top under-40 young leaders by the Asia Society. Orujyan also held a position as a Commissioner on the UN’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development through 2015. In 2017, Orujyan joined the Board of Advisors of Rice University Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Jose Palma-Oliveira is the Professor of Environmental Psychology and Risk Perception and Management at the University of Lisbon. His research has been extended for many areas having as background the interaction between human and environment. In this context developed a model of environmental stress and works actively in the consequences of noise and environmental stimuli. In this area is working with communities for two decades and have a 100% record in solving the so-called (erroneously) NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) problems. The work with communities has been connected with a large array of problems from protected areas to industrial projects. He specializes in analysis, perception and risk management (mainly environmental). He is a consultant (risk manager) and board member of Ambimed Stericycle Portugal (hazardous hospital waste), in Secil Portugal, Brasil and Tunisia (co-incineration of alternative fuels and dangerous RIB and coordination of the science policy), and is the Chairman of ""Parks of Industrial Ecology” (waste treatment compounds). He was the Chairman of Quercus, (one of the most active environmental NGO in Southern Europe). He was a member of the National Water Council. He was president of the Board of the Foundation for the Protection of the Salinas Samouco between 2001 and 2008. Had a very intense intervention on environmental and risk policy in Portugal and in the EU. He was board member of the European Federation of Transport and Environment (Brussels) from 1997 to 2010 He is past President of the Society for Risk Analysis - Europe and a fellow of the SRA International. He was an invited expert in the preparation of EU directives such as air quality and noise and of the EU ECOSOC (EU Socio Economical Committee). In helped to install the structure of the hospital waste treatment compounds in Portugal, the co-processing of Refused Derived Fuels (including from hazardous waste) in the cement production, developed and installed Ecological Industrial Parks for integrative recycling and processing of industrial waste, and a new way of treating urban waste with the higher percentage of recovering in the literature.
Sónia Pereira is the Head of the Research Support Office at University of Porto. From 2013 to 2016, she was in charge of the International Projects at the Project Management Office. Before joining U.Porto in 2007, where she worked as project and technology manager at U.Porto’s TTO, she worked as project manager at a global innovation consultancy with branch offices around Europe. Over the last 10 years she has been involved in several multinational research and coordination projects. Since 2016, she is also in charge of fundraising activities for U.Porto strategical projects beyond research.
Akshay Rajhans is a Senior Research Scientist in the Advanced Research & Technology Office at MathWorks where his work focuses on Technical Computing for, and Model-Based Design and Analysis of, cyber-physical systems (CPS). In his current multi-faceted role, Dr. Rajhans works on increasing the impact of technical computing research along various axes. He engages the research community via leadership roles at MathWorks Research Summits and at external research conferences worldwide. He co-manages a collaborative research grant program for facilitating bidirectional technology transfer. Via invited talks, panels, and research publications, he disseminates technical knowledge, often providing an industry perspective to academia and an academic and research perspective to industry. He serves on Industry Advisory Boards for various universities, conferences, and professional organizations, on Ph.D. Thesis and Technical Committees, and on the Editorial Advisory Board of an upcoming book on Resilience of CPS. Previously, Dr. Rajhans worked on development and application engineering of electronic control systems for diesel-engine applications at Cummins. As an intern at Bosch Research and Technology Center in Pittsburgh, he developed a model-based approach to non-intrusive load monitoring. Dr. Rajhans has a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of IEEE and ACM.
Bernard Schick (University of Applied Science Kempten, Germany)
William Suski graduated from Clemson University in 2012 with a PhD in Electrical Engineering. His previous research has focused on signal processing, pattern recognition, software-defined radio, and indoor positioning. As a Science Director, he is currently funding grants throughout Europe in information-based sciences.
Richard Voyles' research interest include novel robotic mechanisms, sensors, self-adaptive software, real-time control, and gesture-based human/robot interaction. His professional experience includes IBM, Avanti Optics, Integrated Systems and Dart Controls, tenured academic positions at the University of Minnesota, University of Denver, and Purdue University, positions with the federal government including leading the National Robotics Initiative at the National Science Foundation and Assistant Director for Robotics and Cyber-Physical Systems at the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, and Board of Director positions on The Works, Easton Family Foundation, Minnesota Virtual Simulations and Mark V Automation. His formal training includes the PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, MS in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Stanford University, and BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue. At Purdue, Prof Voyles studies infrastructure tools for self-adaptation in real-time and embedded systems. He also directs research in miniature robotics for search and rescue, including small crawling ground robots for penetration into rubble, hybrid serpentine robots for moving over rubble, and high-precision UAVs for inspecting rubble and structures from the air.
Wei Zhao joined AUS as Chief Research Officer in January 2018. Dr. Zhao has been Rector (President) and Chair Professor at Macao University since 2008. He previously served as Dean of Science and Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 2007 to 2008; Division Director at the National Science Foundation from 2005 to 2007; and worked at Texas A&M University from 1990 to 2005 in many positions, including Senior Associate Vice President for Research from 2001 to 2007, Head of the Department of Computer Science from 1997 to 2001, and advanced from Assistant to full Professor of Computer Science. He has also held teaching positions at Adelaide University and Amherst College. Dr. Zhao earned PhD and MS degrees from University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1986 and 1983, respectively, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Shaanxi Normal University in 1982. Dr. Zhao is the author of several hundred publications and has more than 10,000 citations.