Alain Louchez is the Managing Director of the Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies (CDAIT pronounced sedate) in charge of directing the Internet of Things (IoT)-related development efforts across the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).  He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Georgia Tech Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) and the Georgia Tech Lorraine (European campus) Advisory Board.

Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he held various executive positions including Vice President for BellSouth (now AT&T) Europe; Executive Director of BellSouth France, and General Manager of GTE/Verizon Media Ventures’ wireless video operations in Hawaii. Most recently, he was Vice President of Strategic Management at Numerex, a company focused on machine-to-machine communications (M2M). He was instrumental in the development of the M2M Standardization Task Force at the Global Standards Collaboration.

Alain served on the board of directors of France Telecom Mobiles Data (France Telecom’s wireless data subsidiary); Cofira (Videndi’s founding parent of SFR, France’s second largest telecommunications operator); Com-Dev (a subsidiary of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations group in charge of cable TV), SINEDI/Com-Dev Images (a holding company dedicated to investments in some French thematic TV channels such as Canal J, Planète, CinéCinéma, etc.) and Datech (BellSouth’s French direct marketing subsidiary).

Debra Lam is the Founding Director of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, a statewide public-private partnership committed to investing in innovative solutions for shared economic prosperity. She continues to lead smart communities and urban innovation work at Georgia Tech. Prior to this, she served as Pittsburgh’s inaugural Chief of Innovation & Performance where she oversaw all technology, sustainability, performance, and innovation functions of city government. Before that, she was a management consultant at a global engineering and design firm, Arup. She has received various awards, including being named one of the top 100 most influential people in digital government by Apolitcal.

She has worked and lived in the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. A graduate of Georgetown University and the University of California, Berkeley, Debra serves on the board of the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta and was most recently appointed by the U.S Department of Commerce to the Internet of Things Advisory Board.

Pinar Keskinocak is the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. She is also co-founder and director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems. Previously, she served as the College of Engineering ADVANCE Professor and as interim associate dean for faculty development and scholarship. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, she worked at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. She received her Ph.D. in Operations Research from Carnegie Mellon University, and her M.S. and B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University.

Keskinocak's research focuses on the applications of operations research and management science with societal impact, particularly health and humanitarian applications, supply chain management, and logistics/transportation. Her recent work has addressed infectious disease modeling (including Covid-19, malaria, Guinea worm, pandemic flu), evaluating intervention strategies, and resource allocation; catch-up scheduling for vaccinations; hospital operations management; disaster preparedness and response (e.g., prepositioning inventory); debris management; centralized and decentralized price and lead time decisions. She has worked on projects with companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and healthcare providers, including American Red Cross, CARE, Carter Center, CDC, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University, and Intel Corporation.

She is an INFORMS Fellow and currently serves as the president of INFORMS. Previously she served as the Secretary of INFORMS, a department editor for Operations Research (Policy Modeling and Public Sector area), associate editor for Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and INFORMS Vice President of Membership and Professional Recognition. She is the co-founder and past-president of INFORMS Section on Public Programs, Service, and Needs, and the president of the INFORMS Health Applications Society.

Ashok Goel is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA. He obtained his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. At Georgia Tech, he is also the Director of the Ph.D. Program in Human-Centered Computing, a Co-Director of the Center for Biologically Inspired Design, and a Fellow of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems. For more than thirty years, Ashok has conducted research into artificial intelligence, cognitive science and human-centered computing, with a focus on computational design, modeling and creativity. His recent work has explored design thinking, analogical thinking and systems thinking in biological inspired design (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiRDQ4hr9i8), and his research is now developing virtual research assistants for modeling biological systems. Ashok teaches a popular course on knowledge-based AI as part of Georgia Tech's program on Online Masters of Science in Computer Science. He has pioneered the development of virtual teaching assistants, such as Jill Watson, for answering questions in online discussion forums (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbCguICyfTA). Chronicle of Higher Education recently called virtual assistants exemplified by Jill Watson as one of the most transformative educational technologies in the digital era. Ashok is the Editor-in-Chief of AAAI's AI Magazine.

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. I received my Ph.D. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and held positions as a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Media Lab and as Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute prior to joining Georgia Tech. I direct the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) lab, where we work on developing robots that are able to effectively operate in human environments. My research interests span robotics and artificial intelligence, including semantic reasoning, adjustable autonomy, human computation and cloud robotics. Please visit the RAIL lab website for a description of our latest projects.

Doug Blough, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Electrical & Computer Engineering. After living in Japan for four years and graduating from the American School in Japan, Blough attended the Johns Hopkins University where he received the B.S.E.E. degree and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science in 1984, 1986, and 1988, respectively. From 1988 to 1999, he was first assistant and then associate professor at the University of California at Irvine, where he developed a research program focusing on the design of dependable computing systems at all levels from VLSI components to system architecture to software. In summer 1993, Blough worked on the design of a space-flight computer system under the auspices of a NASA/ASEE Faculty Fellowship and in spring 1996, he visited the Tokyo Institute of Technology on a fellowship from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science. In fall 1999, Blough joined Georgia Tech as a professor, where he continues research and education in computer systems design. He is the holder of 10 patents for wireless communications, bioinformatics and verifiable health records, identity management and other aspects of networking.

Dr. Dellaert does research in the areas of robotics and computer vision, which present some of the most exciting challenges to anyone interested in artificial intelligence. He is especially keen on Bayesian inference approaches to the difficult inverse problems that keep popping up in these areas. In many cases, exact solutions to these problems are intractable, and as such he is interested in examining whether Monte Carlo (sampling-based) approxIMaTions are applicable in those cases.

Russ Clark is a senior research scientist in Georgia Tech's Institute of People and Technology, who engages hundreds of students each semester in mobile development, networking, and the Internet of Things. He is the CEAR Hub lead principal investigator. He emphasizes innovation, entrepreneurship, and industry involvement in student projects and application development. He's also the co-director of the Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center (GT-RNOC), which supports research efforts across campus, and principal leader of the Convergence Innovation Competition, which pairs students and industry sponsors on novel projects. He has played a leadership role in the NSF GENI project, leading both the GT campus trials efforts as well as the GENI@SoX regional deployment and the Software-Defined Exchange (SDX). Russ is active in the startup community, including roles with the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program and as a principle with Empire Technologies during its acquisition by Concord Communications.

Leanne West is Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technologies at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Pediatric Innovation Catalyst at the Global Center for Medical Innovation where she leads innovation in pediatric medical devices. In her 25+ years working at Georgia Tech, she has led multimillion dollar programs and teams of researchers to develop products for government and industry partners. She also started her own company, Intelligent Access, to take her invention of a wireless personal captioning system to market. She serves as the technical liaison between Georgia Tech and pediatric hospitals around the world, with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Shriners Hospitals being the main partners. West works closely with clinicians to understand and identify problems that need a solution to allow them to take better care of their patients. She is an invited Judge for many medical device pitch competitions and serves on several Boards in the healthcare and technology arenas. 

West is the President of the International Children’s Advisory Network (iCAN). Since 2014, iCAN fosters greater global understanding about the importance of the pediatric patient and caregiver voice in healthcare, clinical trials, and research. iCAN gives its members the opportunities to share their stories and experiences in front of organizations like the FDA, AAP, and CDC, and conferences. iCAN is an official partner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) as an official member organization of the Patient and Caregiver Connection Partner program and the Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program. West is also a patient advocate for one of her two rare diseases, serving on the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research Patient Advisory Council and Speaker’s Bureau. 

She has served as the twice-elected Chair of the Georgia Tech Executive Board (2007, 2008) and was the GT Chair of the State Charitable Campaign (2017). She was recognized by Georgia Trend magazine as one of Georgia’s “40 Under 40” in 2004; she was selected for Leadership Georgia in 2008; she was a member of the team awarded the international Optical Society 2012 Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award; she received Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Achievement in Research Enterprise Enhancement Award in 2014, and she was Women in Technology’s Woman of the year in 2014. In 2017, she was appointed to the board of the Georgia Technology Authority by the late Speaker of the House, David Ralston.