DATA CITIZENS Lecture Series presents renowned Radiologist Dr. Eliot Siegel 11/10
2021-11-10 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
Join us on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, 4:00-500 PM, for a “Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series” talk featuring Dr. Eliot Siegel, Professor and Vice Chair of Research Information Systems at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, and Chief of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine for the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System, both in Baltimore, MD.
TALK TITLE: “AI and the Presumed Demise of Radiologists”
Paraphrasing Mark Twain’s famous quote, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” predictions made during the past half a dozen years about the demise of “Radiologist” as a profession have been made with alarming frequency. Geoffrey Hinton, one of the “fathers” of Deep Learning stated that “They should stop training Radiologists now.” Andrew Ng, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford, declared that it would be easier to replace a Radiologist than his personal assistant. Ezekiel Emmanuel proclaimed in the New England Journal of Medicine that, Radiologists, as a profession, could cease to exist in the next few years and that AI was the greatest threat to the practice. A half a dozen years later, it has become obvious that those predictions made by some of the most acclaimed “experts” in Computer Science and Medicine got it completely wrong. This talk will explore the fascinating, daunting, and yet tantalizing challenges associated with the implementation of AI in clinical practice for Diagnostic Imaging and will discuss the hype, reality, and future of Deep Learning for Diagnostic Imaging.
Register Now | Wednesday, 11/10 4:00-5:00 PM
About Data Citizens
Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series is an ongoing course of in-depth talks by experts in the field of data science on a wide variety of topics including data visualization, big data, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics. This lecture series is free and open to the public.
About Eliot Siegel
IDSC is pleased to welcome Dr. Siegel as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow for the group on AI for Radiology.
Dr. Siegel also has adjunct appointments at the undergraduate level at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), in the department of computer science and at the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) in the department of biomedical engineering. He teaches at the fellow, resident, medical student, undergraduate and high school levels. Dr. Siegel has been mentor/advisor and Ph.D. and Master’s thesis faculty for hundreds of students at all these levels during his career.
As Chief of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine for the Veterans Affairs Maryland Healthcare System, Dr. Siegel is responsible for medical imaging within what is referred to as VISN 5, which includes four medical centers in West Virginia and the Washington DC VA Medical Center, as well as those in Maryland. Dr. Siegel’s responsibilities at the local level include administration of the imaging department and, his work as a clinical radiologist with a subspecialty in Nuclear Medicine. At the regional level, Dr. Siegel has responsibility for multiple VA hospitals, and, at the national level, Dr. Siegel has been involved in policymaking in diagnostic imaging, but more specifically in digital imaging and digital information systems.
Under his guidance, the Baltimore VA became the first filmless healthcare enterprise in the world in 1993. He has written over 300 articles/book chapters about PACS and digital imaging and a wide variety of other topics in medical imaging, and, has edited numerous books on the topic, including Filmless Radiology and Security Issues in the Digital Medical Enterprise. Dr. Siegel has also participated in a wide variety of roles including Principal Investigator on many NIH, other government agencies, and industrial grants. He has presented talks at the International level (most often as keynote speaker) and has given over 1,000 talks at grand rounds, symposia, and international conferences around the world. He currently serves on a dozen editorial boards.
Dr. Siegel has won numerous awards at the University of Maryland including medical school mentor of the year. He has been named as overall Radiology Researcher of the Year and Educator of the year in a competition that was international. Dr. Siegel has also been selected by the editorial board of Medical Imaging as one of the top radiologists in the US on multiple occasions.
Dr. Siegel worked at the National Cancer Institute where he created The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA), the Annotation and Image Mark-up “standard” and other initiatives. He was symposium chairman for the SPIE Medical Imaging Meeting, served as chair of Publications for SIIM (Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine) and is a fellow by the ACR (American College of Radiology) and SIIM. He served as chairman of the RSNA’s (Radiological Society of North America) Medical Imaging Resource Committee. Dr. Siegel also worked with the IBM “Jeopardy” team as a medical advisor and has worked with IBM, subsequently, on a variety of projects in natural language processing, the electronic medical record, and medical image interpretation. He is currently co-chair of the SIIM Conference on Machine Intelligence in Medical Imaging (C-MIMI). His areas of interest and responsibility at both the local and national levels include digital imaging and PACS, telemedicine, the electronic medical record, and informatics and AI in medicine.
Dr. Siegel is often interviewed via print or video media for his opinions on many topics in diagnostic imaging, but with a focus on digital imaging technologies. He is sought out as a source for prediction of where medicine—specifically medical imaging—is going in the near and distant future, and as such, is often thought of as a futurist by his colleagues.

Meet a Data Scientist presents Luis Ruiz Pestana 11/16
2021-11-16 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The Meet a Data Scientist series is a chance to get up close and personal with top-level data science professionals. Join us for a talk with Dr. Luis Ruiz Pestana, an expert in molecular modeling and simulation whose research is focused on understanding the amazing properties of nanostructured materials.
The purpose of the Meet a Data Scientist lecture series is to introduce our audience to the people behind the data, their lives, interests, career choices, their work, and passion for how they can use data to solve grand challenges in their respective fields. Join us as we peer behind the curtain and meet the data scientists behind the data! This lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.
Register Now | Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, 4:00-5:00 PM
TALK TITLE: “Can data science help us understand the laws of nature?”
During the last decade, data science has had a tremendous impact on a variety of industries ranging from technology companies to marketing or finance. Only recently have data-driven approaches begun to be applied to solve problems in the physical sciences. Furthermore, the scientific community is divided as to whether black-box approaches can help us better understand the world around us. In this talk, I will overview some hard problems in physics, materials science, and chemistry, where data-driven methods may be our only hope to make progress. I will also discuss the enticing possibility of combining physical simulations—a potentially unlimited source of big data—with data science approaches to tackle persistent challenges in materials science and engineering.
About Luis
Dr. Ruiz Pestana has been an Assistant Professor in the Civil, and Architectural Engineering Department at the University of Miami since 2019. He obtained his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Northwestern University in 2015, where he made important contributions to the areas of nanomechanics, self-assembly, and selective molecular transport in peptide nanotubes, as well as developed mesoscale models to study the mechanical properties of large-scale multilayer graphene assemblies. After his PhD, he became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he used quantum mechanical simulation methods to investigate nanoconfinement effects on chemical reactivity.
Currently, he uses physics-based multiscale simulation techniques and data-driven approaches to investigate the unusual properties of nanostructured materials. The ultimate aim of his research is to discover and design advanced nanomaterials that can tackle persistent societal challenges, from sustainable infrastructure to clean energy.

2-Day Scientific Computing with R Workshop 11/18-19
2021-11-18 09:00 - 2021-11-19 16:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
This 2-day intensive online workshop is designed to provide foundational concepts that all programming depends on, using the R statistical computing platform as an example. There are no prerequisites and the workshop is designed for computer users from beginners to advanced.

Thursday & Friday, November 18-19, 2021 | 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM Course Hours, Both Days
Register Now | Syllabus
This workshop is free and open to UM Faculty, Staff, and Students.
Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
Data Ethics As part of this 2-day workshop, guest speaker Kenneth W. Goodman, PhD, Director of the UM Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy will join us for a special program on Ethics for Scientific Writing and Coding, titled “Ethics and Software Standards.”
For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper “Best Practices for Scientific Computing”.
Who The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don’t need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.
Where This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.
When Nov 18-29, 2021, 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM Course Hours, Both Days | Add to your Google Calendar.

Instructors
Tim Norris PhD, Data Scientist
Cameron Riopelle, PhD, Data Services Librarian

Helpers
Thilani Samarakoon PhD, Biomedical Data Librarian
Cameron Hallet, Marine Science/Computer Science Double Major
Gabriel Odom PhD, Assistant Professor, Chen Lab, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center

Requirements Participants must have access to a computer with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed.
Accessibility We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.
Contact Please email Tim Norris tnorris@miami.edu for more information.
Roles To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to the Workshop FAQ

Syllabus

The syllabus is available offering Day 1 and Day 2 SCHEDULE, preparation instructions, code of conduct, and pre-event survey.

A second 2-day session on Python will be held on December 2-3, 2021.

Drs. Yelena Yesha and Pierre-François d’Haese Speak at FDA AI/ML Meeting 11/29
2021-11-29 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
“Take10: Towards a Novel Ecosystem for Transparent Integration of AI in Clinical Flow” is a presentation by Dr. Yelena Yesha and Dr. Pierre-François d’Haese on the basis of a novel ecosystem developed between the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and the University of Miami Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC).
This Consortium brings together multidisciplinary expertise in large radiology systems, medical imaging analytics, large clinical data management, ML/AI, radiomics, real-world evidence collection, and regulatory access to extensive clinical flow and data.
Monday, November 29, 11:00 AM ET via Zoom for Government
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI)- and machine learning (ML)-based technologies have the potential to transform healthcare by deriving new and essential insights from the vast amount of data generated during the delivery of healthcare every day. Example high-value applications include earlier disease detection, more accurate diagnosis, identification of new observations or patterns on human physiology, and development of personalized diagnostics and therapeutics.
One of the most significant benefits of AI/ML in software resides in its ability to learn from real-world use and experience and its capability to improve its performance. The ability for AI/ML software to learn from real-world feedback (training) and improve its performance (adaptation) makes these technologies uniquely situated among software as a medical device (SaMD) and a rapidly expanding area of research and development.
While the FDA has made significant strides in developing appropriately tailored policies for SaMD to ensure the safe and effective technologies reach users, we believe that the next paradigm for device regulation needs to be ready for adaptive AI/ML technologies, which have the potential to adapt and optimize device performance in real-time to improve healthcare for patients continuously. Such change requires an approach based on a new technological ecosystem allowing for continuous testing and following of AI-based devices that facilitates a rapid product improvement cycle and allows these devices to improve continually while providing adequate safeguards.
The framework is based on three pillars:

Seamless access of de-identified clinical data from radiology and medical records allowing for preliminary training of novel analytics models
Low footprint compliant integration of AI models in the radiological clinical flow
Gathering of information and monitoring of performances in conjunction with radiologists and clinical professionals.

Drs. Yesha and d’Haese will conclude with the presentation of opportunities of such systems to support continuous and AI-based regulatory frameworks.

About Dr. Yelena Yesha | UM IDSC
At the University of Miami, Dr. Yelena Yesha is the Knight Foundation Endowed Chair of Data Science and AI at the Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC). At IDSC, Dr. Yesha is also the Innovation Officer and Head of International Relations. In this role, Dr. Yesha assists faculty in engaging government and industrial partners to collaborate with the University and consults with faculty on developing research ideas into innovations.
Dr. Yesha was the Founding Director of the National Science Foundation Center for Accelerated Real Time Analytics (CARTA), an NSF-funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) that aims to develop long-term partnerships among industry, academia, and government. CARTA partners with Rutgers University New Brunswick, North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Tel Aviv University, and the University of Miami.
Dr. Yesha received her B.Sc. degrees in Computer Science and in Applied Mathematics from York University, Toronto, Canada, and her M.Sc. degree and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from The Ohio State University She has published 11 books as author or editor, and more than 200 papers in prestigious refereed journals and refereed conference proceedings, and she has been awarded external funding in a total amount exceeding 45 million dollars. She is currently working with leading industrial companies and government agencies on new innovative technology in the areas of blockchains, cybersecurity, and big data analytics with applications to electronic commerce, climate change, and digital healthcare. Dr. Yesha is a fellow of the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies.

About Dr. Pierre-François d’Haese | WVU RNI
Dr. d’Haese is a serial entrepreneur and faculty at the intersection of data analytics and medicine. Most recently, Dr. d’Haese serves as the CEO of Neurotargeting and as the Director of Digital Health and Analytics at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI), an institution focused on the study of human memory and memory diseases. Dr. d’Haese defined the Institute’s digital health vision and analytics, leading a team of multidisciplinary engineers and scientists to build the next generation of AI-driven clinical diagnosis and intervention tools. Dr. d’Haese is an Associate Professor in NeuroRadiology and Computer Science and Elec. Engineering.
Prior to the RNI, Dr. d’Haese started and advised numerous MedTech startups while pursuing an academic path in parallel. Among other projects, Dr. d’Haese built cloud-based medical imaging analytics pipelines to foster discoveries for neurodegenerative disease across academic centers, published on neurodegenerative pathologies such as Parkinson’s or focused ultrasound brain-blood-barrier opening for Alzheimer’s, and developed novel neurosurgical software systems for computer-assisted intervention for DBS and Epilepsy.

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Lecture by Elias Stephan: HP Omnicept, New Era in VR Research 11/29
2021-11-29 14:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The IDSC Creative Computing program is pleased to present Elias Stephan, Head of Business Development at HP Inc. XR Global Business Unit on Monday, November 29 from 2:00-2:30 PM. Elias Stephan has 24 cumulative years of service with HP Inc., and has held a variety of roles in and outside of HP: From leading business development, globally, for the HP XR solutions and HP Immersive Computing in the Americas, to directing GTM for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Flexible Capacity, running the Personal Systems business overseas, and driving channel sales in Canada. Elias holds a BBA from the American University of Beirut. He played soccer on the Lebanese National team and now lives in The Bay Area, California, with his wife and son.
Register Now | Monday 11/29 2:00-2:30 PM
TALK TITLE: “HP Omnicept, New Era in VR Research”
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments, and society. With the broadest technology portfolio, HP delivers solutions for customers’ most complex challenges in every region of the world and gives businesses new ways to create, design, experience, and train with VR. Tune in to this virtual lecture for insights into the latest advances in virtual reality as a training tool. Learn about the increased efficacy of training in VR and how a combination of machine learning and sensor fusion technologies can be leveraged to create more intelligent and adaptable VR applications. Elias will discuss how companies are taking advantage of revolutionary innovations to get the most out of training experiences.
In this online session, you will learn:

The benefits and applications of training with immersive technology
How data-driven insights can enable more effective VR training
VR use-cases and applications for [learning and development]

Special Guest Lecture on Visual Inference with Claus Ekstrøm 12/1
2021-12-01 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Richter Library, 1300 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, Florida, 33146, United States
Join us for a special guest lecture (either in person or virtually) featuring Claus Ekstrøm, professor and vice-chair at the Section of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen. His primary research interests are centered on developing methods for the analysis of high-dimensional data problems and causal discovery. He’s authored two books on statistics and is frequently used as an expert on statistics in Danish news media. Claus has been a grumpy old man from a young age.
Register Now | Wednesday 12/1/2021, 4:00-5:00 PM
This is a hybrid event: In person at Otto G. Richter Library, CR 343 | or online via Zoom.
Title of the lecture: “Validation of visual inference methods in statistics by use of deep learning”
When does inspecting a certain graphical plot allow for an investigator to reach the right statistical conclusion? Visual inference is commonly used for various tasks in statistics—including model diagnostics and exploratory data analysis – and though attractive due to its intuitive nature, the lack of available methods for validating plots is a major drawback.
We propose a new validation method for visual inference. Our method trains deep neural networks to distinguish between plots simulated under two different data-generating mechanisms (null or alternative), and we use the classification accuracy as a technical validation score (TVS). The TVS measures the information content in the plots, and TVS values can be used to compare different plots or different choices of data-generating mechanisms, thereby providing a meaningful scale that new visual inference procedures can be validated against.
We apply the method to three popular diagnostic plots for linear regression, namely the scatter plot, the quantile-quantile plot, and the residual plot. We consider various types and degrees of misspecification, as well as different within-plot sample sizes. Our method produces TVSs that increase with increasing sample size and decrease with increasing difficulty, and hence the TVS is a meaningful measure of validity.

Guest Speaker John C Havens: Responsible Innovation and Ethically Aligned Design 12/3
2021-12-03 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
IDSC’s Data Ethics + Society Program in collaboration with the Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy Dialogues in Research Ethics (DRE) Series is pleased to host guest speaker John C. Havens, Executive Director of The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (A/IS).
Register Now | December 3, 2021 | 12:00-1:00 PM via Zoom
The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of A/IS has two primary outputs—the creation and iteration of a body of work known as ”Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems” and, the recommendation of ideas for Standards Projects focused on prioritizing ethical considerations in A/IS. Currently, there are thirteen approved Standards Working Groups and two completed Standards in the IEEE P7000™ series. John was responsible for: the initial ideation, framing, and execution for bringing together the more than seven hundred global thought leaders to create Ethically Aligned Design; was Founding Chair of IEEE 7000 and IEEE 7010 and helped launch more than a dozen other IEEE Standards Working Groups focused on AI, AI Ethics, AI Governance, and AI Procurement; and continues to work on staff at the IEEE Standards Association to help further design, proliferate, and standardize the concepts of human-centric, applied ethical, values-driven design for Responsible Innovation of all technologies.
John is also Executive Director for The Council on Extended Intelligence (CXI) that was created to ensure society prioritizes people, planet, and prosperity by promoting responsible participant design, control of data rights, and holistic metrics of prosperity. CXI is a program founded by The IEEE Standards Association and MIT whose members include representatives from the EU Parliament, the UK House of Lords, and dozens of global policy, academic, and business leaders.

Talk Title: “Responsible Innovation and Ethically Aligned Design” Since 2015 IEEE has created a globally utilized suite of principles, programs, and standards working to redefine Responsible Innovation for the algorithmic age. Based on their landmark publication, Ethically Aligned Design, a three hundred page treatise on human-centric, applied ethics created by over seven hundred global experts, IEEE has also released two standards in their 7000 series formally connecting socio-technical considerations to traditional systems engineering, which are:

IEEE 7000™-2021: IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns During System Design and
IEEE 7010™-2020: IEEE Recommended Practice for Assessing the Impact of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems on Human Well-Being.

Serving as a keyframing for any AI products, services, or systems development, these two standards help users design and release technology that is human-centric and aligned via methodologies that provably honor people’s values while prioritizing human wellbeing in concert with environmental sustainability. IEEE has also recently created the Certified AI Ethics conformance mark/program as a way to help organizations move from principles to practice to provide overt accountability and trust with end users and all stakeholders in their design process.

Follow John on LinkedIn. John currently has over ninety citations on Research Gate and dozens of articles for outlets such as The Guardian, Quartz, IEEE Spectrum, and Mashable.

IDSC Fellows 2021-2022 Launch Event Announces Chosen Fellows 12/7
2021-12-07 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) is pleased to announce the IDSC Fellows for the 2021-2022 academic year. The vision of the IDSC Fellows Program is to inspire a new generation of leaders in data science to cross the traditional boundaries between disciplines.
IDSC joins with University faculty to mentor IDSC Fellows on how to best utilize University’s cutting-edge advanced computing resources in their proposed research projects.
This is a prestigious designation awarded each year to two undergraduate students (sophomore level or above), and two graduate students. Join us for the announcement of the 2021-2022 fellows and hear their project proposals. This event is free and open to UM Faculty/Staff/Students.
Tuesday, 12/7/2021 3:00 – 4:00PM | Register Now

Meet a Data Scientist presents Ching-Hua Chuan 12/8
2021-12-08 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The Meet a Data Scientist series is a chance to get up close and personal with top-level data science professionals. Join us for a talk with Prof. Ching-Hua Chuan whose research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and music information retrieval with a focus on human-centered computing.
The purpose of the Meet a Data Scientist lecture series is to introduce our audience to the people behind the data, their lives, interests, career choices, their work, and passion for how they can use data to solve grand challenges in their respective fields. Join us as we peer behind the curtain and meet the data scientists behind the data! This lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.
Registration Link forthcoming | Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, 12:00-1:00 PM
TALK TITLE: Human-Machine Collaboration and Communication
One of the key controversies regarding AI centers on how AI systems and automation will replace humans. In this talk, Dr. Chuan will share her various interdisciplinary projects that highlight the collaboration between human and machine. As a computer scientist by training, Dr. Chuan’s work focuses on creating new algorithms and new ways to represent information and knowledge in different media and interactions, with the goal to create computing systems that are able to (1) understand the semantic meanings in complex data and make accurate interpretations, and (2) interact and collaborate with humans to achieve something no humans or machines can perform alone.
Dr. Chuan uses computational approaches to understand and predict how people perceive various media content, including text, speech, music, video, and movement. Specifically, this talk will focus on her projects in three key fields: music, education, and communication. Focusing on music information retrieval, she has created computational tools to inspire creativity in music composition from amateur musicians. She is currently working with a group of faculty across various disciplines at UM to create a smart ecosystem that provides personalized music experience for mood regulation. For education applications, she has worked with scholars in deaf education to create an app that recognizes American Sign Language to assist families with children who are deaf or hard of hearing to learn sign language together. In the field of communication, she used deep learning to create a conversational agent (i.e., chatbot) that delivers personalized, user-friendly information about clinical trials to patients and their families. Most recently, she has developed a mobile app intervention to help users form eco-friendly habits.
As Connolly argued in his recent article–Why Computing Belongs within the Social Sciences–“computing as a discipline is becoming progressively more entangled within the human and social lifeworld.” Through this talk, Dr. Chuan aims to inspire more interdisciplinary collaborations that focus on the nexus of human-centered computing, interactive communication, and design.

About Ching-Hua
Ching-Hua Chuan is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at the University of Miami. She received her PhD in computer science from the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, and her BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University.
She has served on the program committees of many organizations including AAAI and the International Society of Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR).
Dr. Chuan was the recipient of the best new investigator paper award at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 2010. Her interdisciplinary work with communication scholars has applied computational approaches to social science research and has won the top faculty paper award from the Public Relations Society of America (2018) and the American Academy of Advertising research fellowship (2020).
Through her collaborations with scholars across different fields, she aims to augment the power of computing for social change and adopts an interdisciplinary approach to studying the impacts of technological advances, from mixed reality to artificial intelligence, on society.

BIG DATA Conference 12/9
2021-12-09 14:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
Join us for the 6th Annual Big Data Conference on Thursday, December 9, 2021, 2:00-5:00 PM, for an in-depth discussion of creative destruction and the effects of Big Data, blockchain, AI, and real-time analytics on organizational change with some of the top industry leaders in innovation, business, and technology from local, national, and international arenas.
Thursday 12/9, 2-5 PM | Register Now (free)
Big data, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, real-time analytics, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) are profoundly reshaping our organizations, institutions, and society at large. Besides changing the consumer-facing operations of firms, these technologies are changing supply chain design, operations management, human resource management, and product development. Entire new segments of the economy like the gig economy have sprung up. At the global level, these technologies are driving greater market efficiencies forcing companies big and small to adopt these technologies or be left behind. Businesses, nonprofits, health care providers, government agencies, entrepreneurs, and educational institutions all have responded to these changes and redesigned themselves to survive. Indeed, these technologies are ushering in an era of creative destruction.*
Big Data 2021 topics include:

How Big data technologies are disrupting industries
How Big data technologies are creating new opportunities
How Big data technologies is changing the public sector
How to retrain the current workforce for these new challenges
How should educational institutions adjust to ensure that people entering the workforce are trained for the AI-driven economy
How are augmented and virtual reality technologies going to change:

Our homes?
Our entertainment?
Our work?

Will extended reality be a force of good in society?

The Big Data Conference is free and open to the public.

Agenda
2:00 Welcome
2:05 Keynote Speaker Michael Mylrea “Manufacturing in the Metaverse: A Brave New World of Disruptive Innovation in the Era of Pandemic”
2:40 Plenary Speaker: Alex Moura “Big Data in Banking: How the Data and AI Revolution is Changing Financial Services”
3:20 Break
3:30 Panel Discussion: “Transformation of institutions, industries and government by Big Data, AI and Extended Reality technologies” moderated by Nick Tsinoremas
4:20 Guest Speaker: Ashwin Kumar “ANNOVA—Prediction & Prevention of Negative Outcomes”
4:50 Closing Remarks | Q+A

Keynote Speaker
Dr. Michael Mylrea | Resilience
Senior Distinguished Engineer at National Resilience
Fellow for Industrial Cybersecurity at University of Miami IDSC
TOPIC: “Manufacturing in the Metaverse: From Digital Twins to Distributed Ledgers of Vulnerable Things in an Era of Pandemic and Cyberwar” Please join Dr. Mylrea for an exploration of disruptive innovation driving Industry 4.0 opportunities and challenges that are redefining security, manufacturing, and the health ecosystem. This presentation is timely as all modern organizations require a resilient health ecosystem to function. The Covid-19 Pandemic was a grim reminder of our vulnerability as critical ports and transportation ground to a halt, hospitals, and essential services were overwhelmed and critical supply chains and manufacturing were disrupted. While researchers worked to develop a vaccine for a complex, non-linear, evolving biothreat, sophisticated cyber adversaries took advantage of the fog of war during Covid to attack the health ecosystem. An ongoing Cyberwar increasingly targeted healthcare, pharma, and medical device manufacturing, and device supply chains. Ransomware spread through hospital networks, stealthy cyber weapons were launched to steal intellectual property, and misinformation campaigns questioned the viruses source and efficacy of its cure. The following presentation explores how National Resilience, one of the fastest-growing technology companies and biopharma leaders, aims to overcome some of these challenges with disruptive innovation.

Dr. Michael Mylrea is a Distinguished Fellow for Industrial Cybersecurity at the University of Miami IDSC, and a Senior Distinguished Engineer at Resilience, one of the fast-growing technology companies in the US focused on disrupting medicine with innovation. At Resilience, Michael is leading various innovative security architecture and industrial cybersecurity solutions. Dr. Mylrea is a technologist with 18+ years of cybersecurity experience developing innovative solutions and holds 14+ Infosec and Blockchain patents. He led one of the first and largest federally funded blockchain projects that helped introduce blockchain tech to the national lab system. He has launched and led various tech companies and has held CISO, CTO, CPO, and Senior technical positions in industry and government, including, but not limited to: GE, Pacific Northwest National Lab, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, US Cyber Consequences Unit, Harvard Berkman Klein Center, and Cyber Team 7.
Michael has helped influence various standards, regulations, and technology developments through participation in Group of 7, National Security Council, National Science Foundation, National Academy of Science, IEEE, NDIA, AAAI, and NIST panels, consortium, advisor boards (Tenable, CyManII, CARTA, Rocky Mountain Institute, EC Council and World Business Angels Investment Forum). He frequently keynotes large conferences and workshops such as RSA and IoT World. His work has appeared in news, journal articles, television, and congressional testimony and is frequently cited in technical, industry, and government publications. Dr. Mylrea is a National Science Foundation CyberCorps Scholar alum, completing his Doctorate at George Washington University (GWU) on Cybersecurity. Michael is a recipient of a number of distinguished awards (Fulbright Scholarship, NSF CyberCorps, Rosenthal Fellowship, FDD National Security Fellowship, Top 99 Future Leaders Award). Michael speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese and is proficient in auditing various computer languages.

Plenary Speaker
Alex Moura, MBA | Mastercard
Vice President, Insights and Analytics
Advisors Product Management
TOPIC: “Big Data in Banking: How the Data and AI Revolution is Changing Financial Services” | The advent of the internet and the mobile phone brought convenience to consumers and allowed the “digitization” of many traditional products and services. Along with it, came the availability of rich and abundant data that can help financial institutions to improve services, increase customer convenience, and decrease costs. In this presentation, Alex shares his perspective on the opportunities and challenges brought by big data and data science to the banking industry.

Alex Moura is a technologist with a strong passion for innovation and for creating new products that allow people to access new experiences and buy things they need, want, and love. He currently leads Insights and Analytics in Latin America. Main responsibilities include product management of Data Platforms and Advanced Analytics for Mastercard’s Data and Services Division. Alex is recognized as a thought leader in Data Analytics, Digital Transformation, and Innovation. He is also a frequent speaker and panelist at industry conferences and has delivered keynotes on these topics for audiences in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Alex started his career as an Officer in the Brazilian Navy and spent a number of years with Ernst & Young’s Technology and Security Risk Services Group advising clients across a broad spectrum of industries and geographies. Prior to joining Mastercard, Alex led Royal Caribbean Cruises’ Group responsible for business intelligence and payments.
Alex is a Brazilian Naval Academy graduate and holds an MBA from the University of Miami School of Business. A native of Brazil, Alex currently resides in Miami, Florida.

Panel
“Transformation of Institutions, Industries, and Government by Big Data, AI, and Extended Reality (XR) Technologies”

Moderator
Nick Tsinoremas, PhD | University of Miami
Director, Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC)
Vice Provost for Research Computing and Data
As Vice Provost for Research Computing and Data at the University of Miami, Dr. Tsinoremas is the Director of the Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC). IDSC was established to catalyze data-intensive research in fields ranging from medicine to earth sciences, urban planning, digital humanities, and business. Before joining the University of Miami, Dr. Tsinoremas served as Head of Informatics and Chemoinformatics at The Scripps Research Institute-Florida. As Director of Computational Genomics and Genomic Discovery at Rosetta/Merck, prior to Scripps, 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, 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 also holds faculty appointments in the Miller School of Medicine and the College of Arts and Sciences.
The focus of Dr. Tsinoremas’ research is on combining data science and computational approaches in informatics, digital health, clinical genomics, molecular biology, computational biology, and drug discovery to foster collaborative interdisciplinary projects.
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, UK.

Panelists

Lt. Joel Bello, Esq. | Miami-Dade Police Department
Homeland Security Bureau
Lieutenant Joel Bello, Esq., is an eighteen-year veteran of the Miami-Dade Police Department. During his time he has served as a detective in the Narcotics Bureau, Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT); detective and supervisor in the Robbery Intervention Detail (RID); supervisor in the Gang Street Section, and coordinator for the Multi-Agency Gang Task Force; commander for the Special Response Team (SRT); commander for the Priority Response Team; and is now supervising investigations in the Homeland Security Bureau.
In 2019, Lieutenant Bello graduated from St. Thomas College of Law and is a practicing attorney. Mr. Bello is an adjunct professor at St. Thomas College of law teaching Cybercrimes Law and Criminal Procedure. He also holds a Master’s degree in performance psychology and has implemented mental skills training into tactical police training.

Diego Berta | Magic Leap
Vice President of Business Development
Coming from a family of engineers and craftsmen in Argentina’s wine country, Diego was born with an appreciation for raw materials and the artisans that turn rough elements into amazing works of mechanical or fine arts. For him, the startup world is no different. He prides himself in having an innate ability to find rare visionaries and entrepreneurs and then help them turn rough ideas into unique and highly valuable companies.
Diego is a well-versed deal maker in the realm of advanced technology. As the Vice President of Business Development of Magic Leap, considered one of the world’s most innovative technology startups, Diego is responsible for curating Magic Leap’s strategic partnerships and next generation technologies.

Prior to Magic Leap, Diego served as Sr. Manager of Business Development of MAKO Surgical where he was responsible for qualifying and securing intellectual and financial capital for core technology projects. After a successful 9 year run of innovation in surgical robotics and numerous awards, the company was acquired for $1.7B.Diego started his career in the technology world at ThinkEquity, a boutique investment bank that specialized in the medical robotics space.
Diego’s greatest accomplishment in life is having found his wife of 17 years and being the father of two brilliant and loving children.

Margaret Brisbane | Miami Dade County
CIO/Director of the Information Technology Department
Margaret Brisbane is the CIO/Director of the Information Technology Department for Miami Dade County. In her current role, she is responsible for leading a team of IT professionals in servicing the technology needs of the County. The primary IT pillars are Security, Platforms, and Applications along with Administration to support all operations. The team provides support to all County Departments including enterprise solutions for Financial, Payroll, Human Resources, Public Safety, Legislative, Commerce, and the PeopleSoft systems. The team also supports document and asset management and geospatial systems as well as major technology projects, including, but not limited to Criminal Justice, Permitting and Code Enforcement, Radio, and INFORMS.
Prior to joining the County, Margaret served as Director of Service Delivery for Burger King Corporation. During her 20-year career, she led the Telecommunications Center of Excellence for various Diageo brands, worked on restaurant systems support as well as Point of Sales system implementation for various domestic and international locations.

Throughout her career, Margaret has been actively involved in the community and professional organizations. She is currently a member of the Technology Committee for both the Greater Chamber of Commerce and the Beacon Council. She served as co-chair for the Community Services Committee for the FIU Alumni Circle and is a co-chair for the annual United Way Women’s Leadership breakfast. She is the Chair of the IT Women Virtual Mentoring Program and a mentor to one of the scholarship recipients. She established a mentoring program between the County’s IT department and a local high school IT Academy, currently in its 10th year. She was the Chair for the 2007-2008 Greater Chamber of Commerce Leadership Miami Program and was a member of the Executive Committee for seven years. She was instrumental in developing and chairing the Chambers Youth Leadership program for three years. She has also participated as a mentor to several FIU business students to continually innovate and build their technical and business skills. She has participated on the eMerge Executive Committee and leads the effort for the County’s booth at the annual conference.Margaret holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in International Marketing from Florida International University and a Master of Business Administration with Honors from Nova Southeastern University. She also received a certificate in Executive Leadership from Harvard University. She received the Torch Award from FIU and was name Female Technology Leader of the Year by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. She recently received the “Ones to Watch” award from the CIO Executive Council.

Matthew Denesuk, PhD | Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Senior Vice President, Data Analytics & AI
Matt is the Senior Vice President of Data Analytics & AI at Royal Caribbean Cruises in Miami, Florida. Matt is overseeing the inception, development, and deployment of data-driven and AI-based capabilities across the company. He previously was Chief Data Science Officer, and a founder, of Noodle.ai, which provides AI-as-a-Service to enterprises and industrial firms. Prior to that, he was the Chief Data Science Officer and GM of the Data Science of Excellence at General Electric. He also led Smarter Planet Modeling & Analytics at IBM Research and, was a Partner in IBM’s Venture Capital Group. Matt has BS, MS, and PhD Degrees from MIT and the University of Arizona.

Rodolphe e-Khoury, PhD | University of Miami
Dean, School of Architecture
Partner, Khoury Levit Fong (KLF)
Rodolphe el-Khoury is Dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture. Trained as both a historian and a designer, he divides his time between scholarship, research, and practice. He is the author of numerous books on architecture and urbanism, including See Through Ledoux; Architecture Theatre, and the Pursuit of Transparency; Monolithic Architecture; and Figures: Essays on Contemporary Architecture. Dean el-Khoury leads RAD-UM, a research lab for embedded technology and robotics aiming at enhancing responsiveness and resilience in buildings and smart cities. The work of his firm, Khoury Levit Fong (KLF), has won international awards. Dean el-Khoury’s work has been featured in national and international media outlets that cut across disciplines ranging from WIRED Magazine to the Wall Street Journal to the Space Channel to BBC World. He has shared his work through teaching, visiting professorships, and lectures at dozens of institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

Arthur Kordon | Kordon Consulting, LLC
CEO
Dr. Arthur Kordon is a CEO of Kordon Consulting LLC and an internationally recognized pioneer in applying advanced analytics and artificial intelligence in the industry with more than 30 years of experience. He is currently consulting several global corporations to introduce and use analytical solutions and artificial intelligence in their business. His current projects include developing cognitive models of the Enterprise, preventive maintenance, energy cost reduction analysis, space analytics. In his previous position as Advanced Analytics Leader at Dow Chemical, Dr. Kordon has successfully applied advanced analytics solutions in various business problems in forecasting, business cycles analysis, price elasticity analysis, etc. He successfully introduced several novel technologies for improved manufacturing and new product design based on artificial intelligence, such as robust inferential sensors, operating discipline, and accelerated fundamental model building. He was granted a US patent and has published more than 70 papers and 16 book chapters in applied artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. He is the author of two books Applying Data Science and Applying Computational Intelligence, published by Springer. He is a co-author of the book Applied Data Mining for Forecasting, published by SAS Press.

Guest Speaker

Ashwin Kumar | Jackson Health System
Associate Vice President
TOPIC: “ANNOVA—Prediction & Prevention of Negative Outcomes” Accelerated Neural Network for Opportunity & Variance Analysis is a complex cumulative compilation of discrete data points through a patient’s progression of care to predict a defined set of negative outcomes, both clinical and financial, and how to prevent them.
Ashwin Kumar is the Associate Vice President of Revenue Cycle Management, Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Department of Research, Opportunity, Innovation & Data Sciences (DROIDS) at Jackson Health System, a nonprofit academic medical system dedicated to building the health of the community by providing world-class care to the residents of Miami, Florida. He received a post-graduate degree with a major in Finance and a minor in Systems. Prior to joining Jackson Health System, he worked at Deloitte Consulting in the Healthcare Providers segment under the Strategy & Operations practice. Ashwin is an innovative executive with 20 years of experience in healthcare, creating complex tech-enabled solutions to drive process improvement and growth in all Revenue Cycle areas, including Health Information Management, Patient Access, Clinical Documentation Improvement, Revenue Integrity, and Denials Management. His solutions exhibit successful uses of data extraction, predictive modeling, data intellectualizing, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence to drive process improvement, improve revenue, reduce operating expenses, prioritize actions and prevent errors in various areas of hospital operations.

Discover all IDSC has to Offer at a Town Hall event 1/13/2022
2022-01-13 16:30 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
IDSC is broadening its computational resources and services! We invite you to attend a Town Hall meeting to discover all that IDSC offers. Join us online on Thursday, January 13, 2022, for a look at IDSC’s advanced computing resources, systems and data engineering services, workforce development and educational programming, as well as our research focus areas, outreach, events, and engagement opportunities.
The IDSC Advanced Computing service unit business model will be shared, and we’ll introduce our subsidy programs designed to help the heavy supercomputer user as well as the uninitiated.
IDSC is committed to promoting data science to enhance data science understanding within the University’s research community, and offers three grant programs for faculty or students:

Expanding the Use of Collaborative Data Science at UM
Access to IDSC Resources for Early Career Researchers
Bridge Awards for Degree and Program Community

We believe in a collaborative approach that brings together talented minds in multiple disciplines to leverage the University’s state-of-the-art technology. Join us to explore how the U’s powerful resources in data science and computing can help you achieve research, training, and business goals.
Register Now | Thursday 1/13/22, 4:00-5:00 PM
This event is free and open to University of Miami Faculty, Staff, and Students only.

Meet a Data Scientist presents Shrikanth Narayanan 2/9
2022-02-09 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The purpose of the Meet a Data Scientist lecture series is to introduce our audience to the people behind the data, their lives, interests, career choices, their work, and passion for how they can use data to solve grand challenges in their respective fields. Join us for a talk with Dr. Shri Narayanan, an interdisciplinary engineer-scientist with a focus on human-centered signal processing and machine intelligence with speech and spoken language processing at its core.
Join us as we peer behind the curtain and meet the data scientist behind the data! This lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.
Register Now | Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022, 4:00-5:00 PM
TALK TITLE: “Human-centered Multimodal Machine Intelligence”
The convergence of sensing, communication, and computing technologies offers tremendous opportunities for continuous information-rich yet unobtrusive multimodal, spatiotemporal characterization of an individual’s behavior and state, and of the environment within which they operate. This in turn is enabling hitherto unimagined possibilities for understanding and supporting various aspects of human-centered applications from health and well-being to job performance.
Recent computational approaches that have leveraged judicious use of both data and knowledge have yielded significant advances in this regard, for example in deriving rich, context-aware information from multimodal signal sources including human speech, language, and videos of behavior. This talk will focus on some of the advances, opportunities, and challenges in gathering such data and creating algorithms for machine processing of such cues. It will highlight some of our ongoing efforts in Behavioral Signal Processing (BSP)—technology and algorithms for quantitatively and objectively understanding typical, atypical, and distressed human behavior—with a specific focus on communicative, affective, and social behavior. The talk will illustrate behavioral machine intelligence applications that contribute to quantifying higher-level, often subjectively described, human behavior in a domain-sensitive fashion. Examples will be drawn from health and wellbeing realms such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Couples Therapy, Depression, Suicidality, Addiction Counseling, and Workplace Behavior. It will also highlight some of the open technical challenges.
About Shri
Shrikanth “Shri” Narayanan is University Professor and Niki & C. L. Max Nikias Chair in Engineering at the University of Southern California, where he is also a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Linguistics, Psychology, Neuroscience, Pediatrics, and Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, Director of the Ming Hsieh Institute, and Research Director of the Information Sciences Institute. Prior to USC he was with AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Research. His research focuses on human-centered information processing and communication technologies.
Shri is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the Acoustical Society of America, IEEE, ISCA, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He is a recipient of several honors including the 2015 Engineers Council’s Distinguished Educator Award, a Mellon award for mentoring excellence, the 2005 and 2009 Best Journal Paper awards from the IEEE Signal Processing Society (serving as Distinguished Lecturer for 2010-11), a 2018 ISCA CSL Best Journal Paper award, ISCA Distinguished Lecturer for 2015-16, Willard R. Zemlin Memorial Lecturer for ASHA in 2017, the Ten Year Technical Impact Award in 2014, and the Sustained Accomplishment Award in 2020 from ACM ICMI. He has published over 900 papers and has been granted eighteen U.S. patents. His research and inventions have led to technology commercialization including through startups he co-founded: Behavioral Signals Technologies focused on the telecommunication services and AI-based conversational assistance industry and Lyssn focused on mental health care delivery, treatment, and quality assurance.
Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan
University of Southern California, Los Angeles | Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory

Free 2-Day Scientific Computing with Python Workshop 2/17-18
2022-02-17 09:00 - 2022-02-18 16:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
This 2-day intensive virtual workshop is designed to provide a foundation of basic concepts that all programming depends on, using the general-purpose programming language, Python, as an example. There are no prerequisites and the workshop is designed for computer users from beginners to advanced.

Thursday + Friday 2/17-18/22 | 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM Course Hours, Both Days
Register Now | Syllabus | Pre-workshop Survey
This workshop is free and open to UM Faculty, Staff, and Students.
Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

Who The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don’t need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.
Where This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.
When Feb. 17-18, 2022. Add to your Google Calendar.

Instructors
Cameron Riopelle, PhD, Data Services Librarian
Tim Norris PhD, Data Scientist

Helper
Thilani Samarakoon PhD, Biomedical Data Librarian

Requirements Participants must have access to a computer with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed here).
Accessibility We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.
Contact Please email Tim Norris tnorris@miami.edu for more information.
Roles To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to the Workshop FAQ

Syllabus
The syllabus is available offering Day 1 and Day 2 SCHEDULE, preparation instructions, code of conduct, and pre-event survey.

Data Ethics

As part of this 2-day workshop, a guest speaker will join us for a Special Program in Ethics for Scientific Writing and Coding: Joanna Johnson, PhD, Writing Program, on “Writing and Reproducibility.” For more information, please see this paper “Best Practices for Scientific Computing“.

Sponsored by
CALDER LIBRARY
CIMAS
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
IDSC
THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
UM LIBRARIES

VR/AR Association Miami Chapter Launch Event 2/17
2022-02-17 17:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Cosford Cinema, 5030 Brunson Drive, Coral Gables, FL, 33146, United States
The VR/AR Association (VRARA) in partnership with the University of Miami’s XR Initiative and Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) will host a Miami Chapter Launch event on February 17, 2022, 5:30-8:00 PM at the University of Miami Cosford Cinema (located on campus at 5030 Brunson Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146), or you may attend virtually via Zoom.
This event is free and open to the public. The theme of the event is The Intersection of AI and the Metaverse. Guest Speakers will provide presentations and host discussions with the audience on related topics. There will also be a technology showcase.
To register, please visit: Eventbrite.
Guest Speakers

John Cunningham, Head of Government and Aerospace | Unity
John leads Unity’s Government and Aerospace business vertical for the Americas and is the President of the VRARA Central Florida Chapter. John is going to present use cases and trends in the area of digital twins and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Miguel Alonso, Manager, Behavior Authoring and Training-Reinforcement Learning, | Unity
Miguel is a researcher and technologist that is part of the group that develops Unity’s AI and Machine Learning products. Miguel will share insights into the technology and the implications for Digital Twins and the Metaverse.
Lisa Watts, Vice President of Product Marketing and Planning | Magic Leap
The entire industry is anxiously awaiting the availability of the Magic Leap 2. Lisa will talk about MagicLeap’s vision and plans for the future.
Kim Grinfeder, Chair, Department of Interactive Media | University of Miami School of Communication
Kim and his colleagues will share the current programs and key research being conducted at the University and insights into Metaverse trends they are seeing.
Amy Peck, CEO | Endeavor XR
Amy is one of the leading global experts in the XR industry and works with numerous fortune 500 and emerging technology companies, and she is a highly sought-after global speaker. Amy will discuss emerging trends in the industry, help to demystify the Metaverse and the role that XR will play.
Tarja Stephens, President, Miami Chapter | VR/AR Association
The Creator Frontier is working on the future of collective creativity, connection, and social impact in the Metaverse. Tarja will share her work and the plans for the VRARA in Miami.

Co-sponsored by the University of Miami’s XR Initiative and Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC).

About the XR Initiative
Extended Reality (XR) refers to combined real and virtual environments. XR systems are immersive technologies that bring physical objects into digital environments and take digital objects into physical reality. XR includes software and hardware used to create virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), augmented reality (AR), and spatial computing. The X-Reality Initiative at the University of Miami helps with access to use this emerging technology, so we can integrate it seamlessly into everyone’s daily life.

You’re Invited to the College of Engineering Research Day 2/25
2022-02-25 08:30 - 14:45 (America/New_York) | College of Engineering, 1251 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL, 33146, United States
The University of Miami College of Engineering is showcasing its innovation in research on Friday, February 25, 2022. Speaker sessions will focus on initiatives in “Engineering Cures for Cancer” along with sessions focused on advanced materials. The poster sessions will focus on engineering solutions to improve our livelihood and directly impact fields like health, technology, climate change, and cybersecurity through engineering. All in-person events are planned for the Gables campus. (Location TBA)
Friday 2/25, 9:00 AM—3:00 PM | REGISTER NOW
Speaker Sessions Agenda
For the full Agenda with list of speakers, click here. Agenda subject to change without notice.
9:00 Welcome | Dean Biswas, Helena Solo-Gabriele, Renee Evans (Poster Judging)
9:15 Speaker Session I: Engineering Cures for Cancer
Moderators: Drs. Ashutosh Agarwal and Stephen Nimer
9:45 Break
10:15 Speaker Session II: Advanced Materials for Manufacturing
Moderators: Drs. Emrah Celik, James Coakley, Luis Ruiz Pestana
11:30-1:00 Break
1:00 Speaker Session III: Advanced Materials in Healthcare
Moderators: Drs. Sakhrat Khizroev and Fabrice Manns
2:15 Student Poster Award Recipients, Closing Adjourn
Helena Solo-Gabriele, GESC Representative, Renee Evans (Poster Awards)
2:45 End
Speaker Sessions planned for virtual and in-person participation. (In-person participation will depend upon University social-distancing requirements at the time of the event.)

Poster Session Agenda
8:30 AM Coffee and Cookies
10:30 AM Poster Session I Set up starts
11:30 AM -1:15 PM Poster Session I with Box Lunches (in-person)
1:00-2:15 PM Poster Take Down
2:15 Student Poster Award Recipients, Closing Adjourn
Helena Solo-Gabriele, GESC Representative, Renee Evans (Poster Awards)
(Poster Session will be either indoors or outdoors depending upon University social-distancing requirements. Location TBA.)
Poster Session organized by the Graduate Engineering Student Council.

For a complete agenda please click here.

Be a Part of the Next Town Hall and Join our User Community 3/1
2022-03-01 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
As a follow-up to the January IDSC Town Hall showcasing our broadening computational resources and services, we invite you to attend another interactive Zoom session. This session will cover the IDSC unit business model and subsidy programs to assist new users and heavy users, plus, we’ll feature some guest users who will discuss their best practices, shared experiences, and recommended processes. Come be a part of our User Community and bring your questions and concerns. You do not need to be an Advanced Computing user to attend. All are welcome.
Hosted again by Dr. Ben Kirtman, we hope you will join us on Tuesday, March 1, 4:00-5:00 PM, via Zoom. Open to all advanced computing users, University of Miami students, staff, and faculty.
Register Now
Catch the Replay of our January Town Hall (Full Story)

Free 2-Day Scientific Computing with "R" Workshop 3/3-4
2022-03-03 09:00 - 2022-03-04 16:30 (America/New_York) | Don Soffer Clinical Research Center, 1120 NW 14th St, Miami, FL, 33136, United States
Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

Thursday + Friday 3/3-4/22 | 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM Course Hours, Both Days
Registration Now Closed | Syllabus | Pre-workshop Survey
This workshop is free and open to UM Faculty, Staff, and Students.

Who The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers.
You don’t need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where This training will take place online and in-person at the University of Miami Medical Campus, Don Soffer CRC Building, 1120 NW 14th Street, 7th Floor, CTSI Research Training Center (Room), Miami FL 33136. (Map | Directions) The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.
When March 3-4, 2022 | 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM Add to your Google Calendar.

Instructors

Tim Norris PhD, Data Scientist
Gabriel Odom PhD, Assistant Professor, Chen Lab, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center
Thilani Samarakoon PhD, Biomedical Data Librarian

Helpers

Dana Goodrich, PhD Candidate in Human Genetics and Genomics
Cameron Riopelle, PhD, Data Services Librarian

Requirements Participants must have access to a computer with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed here).
Accessibility We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.
Contact Please email Tim Norris tnorris@miami.edu for more information.
Roles To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to the Workshop FAQ.

Syllabus
The syllabus is available offering Day 1 and Day 2 SCHEDULE, preparation instructions, code of conduct, and pre-event survey.

Data Ethics

As part of this 2-day workshop, a guest speaker will join us for a Special Program in Ethics for Scientific Writing and Coding: Kenneth W. Goodman, PhD, Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, on “Ethics and Software Standards.”

For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper “Best Practices for Scientific Computing”.

Sponsored by
CALDER LIBRARY
CIMAS
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
IDSC
THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
UM LIBRARIES

Introductory IBM Cognitive Cloud Academy Workshop for UM Community 3/4
2022-03-04 12:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
On March 4th, the University of Miami will host a half-day IBM Cognitive Cloud Academy Workshop. The workshop will provide an overview of IBM’s academic programs, an introduction to IBM Cloud, Services for Data & AI, and Processing infrastructure. These services and infrastructure can be used to support a wide range of AI and cognitive-based research projects and curricula. The workshop will end with a project planning clinic, whereby faculty can discuss proposed projects.
All University of Miami faculty, students, and staff are welcome to attend on Friday, March 4, 12:00-3:30 PM, via Zoom.
Register Now
The goal of the workshop is to train a number of cognitive and cloud practitioners, educators, and students, whose projects and curricula IBM will continue to support through additional targeted education, required cloud services & resources, and various university relations programs. You can familiarize yourself with IBM’s cognitive cloud services by going to the IBM developer website at https://developer.ibm.com. The IBM developer website contains articles, courses, datasets, and tutorials on various IBM technologies, including AI, Analytics, Blockchain.
We look forward to seeing you all at the IBM Workshop!
Tentative Agenda
12:00 Welcome
12:15 IBM CAS program for Academia
12:45 IBM Cloud Platform
1:30 Break
2:00 Data and AI Services
2:45 Project Cliniccial

Ribeiro Innovation Fund Speaker Series presents Thomas Tucker 3/28
2022-03-10 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Wolfson Building, 5100 Brunson Drive, Coral Gables, FL, 33146, United States
As a visual artist, Thomas Tucker is about creating spatial environments that dynamically represent inner vision and 3D form. Over the years, the ways in which he manipulates space, sound, and visual images have been impacted by the multiple technologies he deploys. What started out as simple hand drawings, has progressed to complex animations, projection mapping installations, and Virtual Reality. Because his work is rooted in art, technology, math, and science, it lends itself to interdisciplinary collaborations in a variety of ﬁelds.
This hybrid (in-person/online) presentation is free and open to the public, and co-hosted by the School of Communication and the Institute for Data Science and Computing.
Monday, March 28 • 11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Register Now on Eventbrite
LOCATION
University of Miami School of Communication
Wolfson Building, Room 1021 (located on first floor)
5100 Brunson Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146
Map + Directions

About Thomas Tucker
Thomas Tucker received his BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he was a Joan Mitchell MFA grant recipient. He has been evolving complex drawings into animation/kinetic sculptural pieces using 3D software and sound design for over a decade.
Prof. Tucker maintains an international profile through his exhibition record and his collaborative research, which often takes him to Japan and the Middle East. Some of these projects include: dealing with body mechanics using motion capture, using technology to create a responsive virtual heritage environment in collaboration with art historians, using animation to describe internal organ movements in collaboration with bimolecular imaging specialists, helping city councilmen visualize new traffic simulations and designing serious games.

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Dr. Yelena Yesha: Keynote Speaker at Take Action! Bias in Technology 3/17
2022-03-17 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
Diversity . Accessibility . Inclusion . . . What are YOU doing to help build an inclusive tech community? This virtual event is part of a series focused on providing actionable advice to leaders and tech talent in the tech community to aid in building a diverse, accessible, and inclusive environment where everyone can thrive. “Actions speak louder than words” is true.
Attend the 4th virtual Take Action South Florida event to learn how you can ‘Take Action!’ IDSC Innovation Officer Dr. Yelena Yesha will be a keynote speaker and join a panel addressing issues around bias in AI such as:

Everyone has biases and when we don’t recognize that we have them, we are unconsciously building them into the technology that we use
Understanding the myriad ways that technology can be biased
Creating diverse teams to develop technology can help to ensure that technology is less biased
Some cultural biases are so strong that even the people negatively impacted by the bias may not realize that they also have that bias

Thursday, March 17, 6:00-8:00 PM
Read More | Register Now

About Take Action South Florida
The “Take Action!” series is a partnership initiative between local South Florida organizations SIM South Florida, TECH HUB South Florida, and ISACA South Florida focused on providing actionable advice to leaders in the tech community to aid in building a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone can thrive. Take Action! addresses issues like technology that isn’t thought of as artificial intelligence can be affected by biases. Accessibility technologies are also impacted. Whether it’s a technology device that isn’t accessible to all or automated speech recognition that doesn’t recognize accents or an alternative communication device that doesn’t have ethnic voice choices. Examples of the bias in technology comes down to the fact that the data used to train artificial intelligence is not representative of the diversity of the human race:

A game system that was tested only on men ages 18–35 didn’t recognize women or children.
Voice recognition tools don’t recognize higher-pitched voices.
Facial recognition is most accurate with lighter-skin men than with women and in particular darker-skinned people.
Algorithms for risk scoring loans said that white men were a better risk.
Algorithms reviewing resumes rejected women’s resumes.

Read more . . . https://sites.google.com/view/takeactionsouthflorida/about?authuser=0

Dr. Yelena Yesha to Speak on Trusted AI at “Hack the Port 22” in FTL 3/21
2022-03-21 10:00 - 10:30 (America/New_York) | Greater Fort Lauderdale / Broward County Convention Center, 1950 Eisenhower Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33316, United States
Join the best in cybersecurity with IDSC Innovation Officer and featured speaker Dr. Yelena Yesha at the Maritime and Control Systems Cybersecurity “Hack the Port 22” Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, March 21-25, 2022. This hybrid (in-person/online) event is organized by the Maryland Innovation and Security Institute (MISI) DreamPort Project inspired by U.S. Cyber Command. Dr. Yesha will speak on Trusted AI on Monday, March 21, 10:00-10:30 AM. The majority of conference events will also be broadcasted live (registration types: conference and training, virtual only, cyber expo only, student registration). Hack The Port 2022 will take place at the Greater Fort Lauderdale / Broward County Convention Center, 1950 Eisenhower Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316. The Conference is working with hotel provider, the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina, who has finalized room blocks for conference attendees—Book your stay.
Agenda | See all Panelists and Presenters
TALK TITLE: Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence: Managing Emerging Risks and Opportunities
Small trusted networks with access to local data sets can translate key innovations in artificial intelligence into meaningful information, outcomes, and results within well-defined business domains. However, high-impact problem solving using AI techniques requires the participation of diverse parties and access to sensitive data within limited to zero-trust environments. Attempts to develop working relationships in these diverse environments lead to very limited discovery at high risk and stress today’s regulatory and compliance processes to the point of failure. Research must enable the development of acceptable technologies and platforms for federated learning, encrypted computation, and high assurance for effective problem-solving in zero-trust environments.
Promising technology and computing platforms are emerging that will enable data owners to retain full control of sensitive information. Advances in homomorphic encryption, blockchain architecture, and secure multi-party computing are lighting the path to secure federated learning. Combining these techniques with high assurance for the development, evaluation, deployment, and maintenance of AI solutions form the basis for significant advancement in the development of trustworthy artificial intelligence.

About Project DreamPort
DreamPort is a cyber innovation, collaboration, and prototyping facility located in Columbia, MD. It was created by USCYBERCOM through a Partnership Intermediary Agreement awarded to MISI in May 2018. DreamPort was designed as an open facility that welcomes the public to tour, collaborate, and prototype in support of USCYBERCOM and its mission partners. Daily, monthly, and quarterly collaboration events are announced through the website and via email for those that register to participate in our DreamPort Partnership Network. DreamPort is a combination of state-of-the-art facilities, innovative programs, and imaginative people charged with finding that spark that leads to unparalleled capability for USCYBERCOM and the warfighters at large.

Data Citizens Distinguished Lecture Series presents Susan Gregurik 3/22
2022-03-22 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
Join us for another “Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series” talk featuring NIH Associate Director for Data Science, and Director of the Office of Data Science Strategy, Susan K. Gregurik. Dr. Gregurick creates and implements new initiatives and activities in data science, in support of the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science.
Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series is an ongoing course of in-depth talks by experts in the field of data science on a wide variety of topics including data visualization, big data, AI, and predictive analytics. The Data Citizens lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.
Register Now | Tuesday 3/22, 2:00-300 PM

TALK TITLE: Connecting Data, Enhancing Software, and Creating a Digital Data Health Ecosystem
The NIH works to maximize opportunities that data science can bring to aid in our mission of improving the health and wellbeing of all US citizens. NIH’s strategic plan for data science serves as a north star to optimizing data storage, creating connected data resources, modernizing our data repository ecosystem, sustaining software development, expanding the national data science workforce, and supporting the NIH data management and sharing policy. Inspired by the strategic plan, and in partnership with colleagues from across the NIH Institutes and Centers, this talk highlights work to catalyze new data science capabilities in biomedical data science.
About Susan Gregurick
Susan K. Gregurick, Ph.D., was appointed Associate Director for Data Science and Director of the Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on September 16, 2019. Under Dr. Gregurick’s leadership, the ODSS leads the implementation of the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science through scientific, technical, and operational collaboration with the institutes, centers, and offices that comprise NIH. Dr. Gregurick received the 2020 Leadership in Biological Sciences Award from the Washington Academy of Sciences for her work in this role. She was instrumental in the creation of the ODSS in 2018 and served as a senior advisor to the office until being named to her current position.

Are you interested in a Career in Data Science? Attend the GDECA Workshop 4/1
2022-03-25 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Are you interested in a career in data science? Attend a free in-person workshop at the Richter Library on Friday, April 1st, with Gravity Data Engineering and Cloud Analytics and see where this exciting in-demand career path can take you. Gravity IT Resources provides direct hire, contract-to-hire, and staff augmentation/contract services of UI/UX Strategists, Designers, and Developers, Front End Web Developers, Mobile Developers, Data Scientists, and Contract Writers.
You Will Learn:

Overview of Data Science as a Career
Life of a Data Engineer, Data Architect, Data Scientist
Forms of Architecture One Needs
Why Cloud?
Demo of Data Engineering on AWS
Demo of Data Science at Scale on AWS

Friday, April 1, 10:30 AM-12:30 PM
Richter Library, 3rd Floor Conference Room
Register Now

About GDECA
Gravity Data Engineering and Cloud Analytics (GDECA) has the expertise to help you build your “Cloud First” data strategy. They start by understanding an organization’s strategic business initiatives and then help you determine how your data can enable success They assess the current state of your data sources and provide clear direction and technical consulting to help you migrate to the cloud. They help aggregate disparate on-premises and cloud data sources, provision necessary and reliable cloud infrastructure, and architect accurate and scalable data pipelines. Your organization can then begin to leverage the world’s most powerful data warehouses and create fast and powerful predictive and prescriptive capability through advanced analytics (AI/ML).

Meet a Data Scientist presents Shane Elipot 4/5
2022-04-05 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The Meet a Data Scientist series is a chance to get up close and personal with top-level data science professionals. Join us for a talk with physical oceanographer and RSMAS professor Dr. Shane Elipot. A Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Ocean Sciences at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), Dr. Elipot conducts research in physical oceanography—specifically in atmosphere-ocean interactions, oceanic surface boundary layer dynamics, and the changes of the global oceanic thermohaline circulation. Dr. Elipot is also interested in the nature of oceanic and atmospheric observations, and more generally in time series and covariance analyses of environmental data.
The purpose of the Meet a Data Scientist lecture series is to introduce our audience to the people behind the data, their lives, interests, career choices, their work, and passion for how they can use data to solve grand challenges in their respective fields. Join us as we peer behind the curtain and meet the data scientist behind the data! This lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.
Register Now | Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 4:00-5:00 PM via Zoom
TALK TITLE: “An Ocean of Data”
Ocean currents are important because they transport freshwater, salt, heat, and CO2, and thus are an integral part of the mechanics of the Earth’s climate. Ocean currents also transport organisms, nutrients, and pollutants such as plastics, and are thus a main driver of variability for marine ecosystems and resources accessible to humans. Yet ocean currents are challenging to observe, and therefore difficult to predict, because the ocean is set in motion on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from seconds to millennia, and from millimeters to the circumference of the Earth. For this talk, Dr. Elipot will present some of his previous, ongoing, and future research projects that are concerned with gathering real or simulated ocean current data and deciphering their roles in our climate system.
About Shane
Dr. Elipot received his PhD in Oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego in 2006. In 2007-2008, Dr. Elipot was a National Research Council postdoctoral research fellow at the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Florida. In 2009, he joined the UK National Oceanography Center in Liverpool as a physical oceanographer. In 2013, Dr. Elipot returned to Miami at the Rosenstiel School first as a scientist, then as a research professor starting in 2019. Dr. Elipot’s research is focused on using in situ observations and model outputs to understand the kinematics and dynamics of ocean currents, from small-scale mixing processes associated with tides to the global oceanic circulation.

Data Citizens Lecture Series presents Hillary Leone and Daniel Bor 4/7
2022-04-07 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
Join us for another “Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series” talk featuring multidisciplinary artist Hillary Leone in a conversation with University of Cambridge neuroscientist Daniel Bor that will explore how they are using data to create art and advance science. Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series is an ongoing course of in-depth talks by experts in the field of data science on a wide variety of topics including data visualization, big data, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics.
The Data Citizens lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). This lecture is sponsored by the UM Department of Interactive Media and the Ribeiro Innovation Fund Speaker Series, and is free and open to the public.
Register Now | Thursday, April 7, 2022, 4:00-500 PM
TALK TITLE: Data at the Intersection of Art and Science
Synch.Live is a participatory art experience designed to mobilize our human instinct to cooperate, and an open technology research framework that will allow scientists to study collective behavior. The work takes inspiration from emergent systems in nature like flocking birds or swarming ants that work together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Emergence is incredibly broad in scope, capturing the creation of galaxies, intelligent behavior in ants, economics, ecosystems, and conscious brains. Recent advances in information theory have allowed three of Synch.Live’s collaborating scientists, with colleagues, to develop an algorithm to quantify emergence. In Synch.Live, we use the algorithm behind-the-scenes to measure how emergent the group as a whole becomes. While the algorithm is tested, our application—measuring emergent behavior among humans – is radically new. Each instance of the game will generate anonymized tracking data which will become raw material for 2D and 3D artwork and research data for scientists studying collective behavior.

About Hillary Leone
Hillary Leone is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist and award-winning digital creative who works at the intersection of art, science, technology, and social impact. Leone’s artwork, known for interrogating language and systems of meaning, has been exhibited in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and featured in the Whitney Biennial. Recent work includes her project on emergence with a team of UK-based scientists that blends cutting-edge research in information theory with experiential art. As an artist/entrepreneur, Leone has directed more than a hundred projects across digital, video, animation, and experiential. She has received numerous grants and awards and has taught and lectured widely. She received her BA in Semiotics and English and American Literature from Brown University; her BFA in Art from California Institute of the Arts; and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in Studio Art.

About Daniel Bor
Daniel Bor is a neuroscientist based at the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London. He received his BA in psychology and philosophy from Oxford University, in 1997, and his PhD in neuroscience from Cambridge University in 2002. He has published research in various fields, including how the brain processes consciousness, attention, memory and intelligence, and the extent that mental training can boost cognitive performance, or even change how we perceive the world. He is the author of a general audience book on consciousness science, ‘The Ravenous Brain’, which was chosen as a best book of 2012 in the Wall Street Journal, and the September main selection at Scientific American Book Club. He also co-wrote the popular science book, ’30 Second Brain’. He has written articles for various popular magazines, including Scientific American Mind, New Scientist, Slate, and Wired UK. He has also appeared on various radio shows and has given many public talks.

Data Citizens presents NIST's Dr. Ram Sriram 4/19
2022-04-19 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Richter Library, 1300 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, Florida, 33146, United States
Join us for another cutting-edge lecture as Ram D. Sriram, PhD, Chief of the Software and Systems Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) IT Lab, takes a look at the third wave of AI combining neural networks and knowledge structures and how it is impacting his health care research at NIST.
Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series is an ongoing course of in-depth talks by experts in the field of data science on a wide variety of topics including data visualization, big data, AI, and predictive analytics. The Data Citizens lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.
Register Now | Free
Tuesday, April 19, 2022| 4:00-5:00 PM IN PERSON or via ZOOM
Richter Library, 3rd Floor Conference Room
1300 Memorial Drive, Room #343, Coral Gables, FL 33146
Map, Directions, and Parking Information
TALK TITLE: ”Transforming Health Care Through Artificial Intelligence Revolutions”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is concerned with the development of computer programs that emulate the intelligence of humans, i.e., AI is deeply concerned with the understanding of human problem-solving strategies and incorporating (or simulating) these strategies into computer programs. Since the 1950s, when the term AI was coined, there has been considerable progress in this area. The 1980s was dominated with the rise of knowledge-based systems, which is also called “the first wave.” Advancements in computer hardware facilitated multilayered neural networks, which led to significant improvements in machine learning for certain classes of problems in 2000s. This was the “second wave.” Now, we are witnessing the “third wave,” which will include a combination of neural networks and knowledge structures. In the talk, I will provide a brief overview of AI methods and discuss how these methods can be used to address problems in health care. AI Topics will include: the derivation-formation spectrum of problem solving, knowledge-based expert systems, neural networks and other machine learning techniques. I will also discuss several current projects at NIST, and will address some challenges for the future.
ABOUT RAM D. SRIRAM
Ram D. Sriram, PhD, is currently the chief of the Software and Systems Division, Information Technology Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Before joining the Software and Systems Division, Dr. Sriram was the leader of the Design and Process group in the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, where he conducted research on standards for interoperability of computer-aided design systems.
Prior to joining NIST, he was on the engineering faculty (1986-1994) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was instrumental in setting up the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory.
Dr. Sriram has co-authored or authored more than 275 publications, including several books, and was a founding co-editor of the International Journal for AI in Engineering.
Dr. Sriram has received several awards including:
• NSF’s Presidential Young Investigator Award (1989)
• ASME Design Automation Award (2011)
• ASME CIE Distinguished Service Award (2014)
• Washington Academy of Sciences’ Distinguished Career in Engineering Sciences Award (2015)
• ASME CIE division’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2016)
• CMU CEE Lt. Col. Christopher Raible Distinguished Public Service Award (2018)
• IIT Madras Distinguished Alumni Award (2021)
Dr. Sriram is a Fellow of AAIA, AIBME, ASME, AAAS, IEEE, INCOSE, SMA, and the Washington Academy of Sciences. He is a Distinguished Member (life) of ACM and Senior Member (life) of AAAI.
Dr. Sriram has a B.Tech. from IIT, Madras, India, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

IDSC Fellows Capstone Event 4/26
2022-04-26 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
From endangered whales to Alzheimer’s disease, concrete durability, and the brain-computer interface, four University of Miami graduate students are applying advanced data science and computing tools to their multidisciplinary research projects selected for the IDSC Fellows Program for the 2021-22 academic year.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022 | 3:00-5:00 PM
This hybrid event is free and open to the public. Attend virtually via Zoom aor in person at the University of Miami Coral Gables campus, Gables One Tower building, 1320 S Dixie Hwy, Training Room 639 (6th floor), Coral Gables, FL 33146. Free guest parking available through US1 front entrance. Map + Directions
Register Now

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The 2021-2022 IDSC Fellows, Ashley Cook, Julian Dallmeier, Kevin Davis, and Mingyue Wu have been working closely with multiple mentors—from their field plus an IDSC faculty mentor—to develop their computational skills and expand their research experience for their capstone spring symposium presetations.
“Our goal is to inspire a new generation of leaders in data science to cross traditional boundaries of disciplines,” said Giannina Bianchi, IDSC’s Engagement and Outreach Manager, who introduced the new IDSC Fellows at a December 7, 2021 webinar launch event. “Through IDSC they will have access to our advanced computer resources in their research.”
Here are the projects of the four students, who constitute the eighth cohort for the IDSC Fellows Program:

Cetacean Acoustics | Ashley Cook
As a doctoral student in the Marine Biology and Ecology program at the Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS), Ashley Cook is studying cetacean acoustics to detect Rice’s whales, an endangered species in the DeSoto Canyon off Florida’s west coast.
“With fewer than 100 Rice’s whales remaining, we need to learn more about their location and activities in their primary habitat,” said Cook. Currently, there are 17 hydrophone sites in the region that detect the “long moans and downsweep trains” of the whales and generate recordings. However, it is not feasible to manually review the recordings to identify individual animals—particularly against background noises such as passing ships.
For her project, “Detection of Rice’s Whale Calls in the Gulf of Mexico Using Passive Acoustic Data and Deep Learning,” Cook plans to develop a call detector for this baleen whale species that could also be applied to other long-term acoustic datasets.
Cook’s mentors are

Elizabeth Babcock, PhD | Professor, Department of Marine Biology and Ecology, RSMAS
Melissa Soldevilla, PhD, who leads the Passive Acoustic Monitoring program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries.
Gang Ren, PhD | IDSC AI + Machine Learning | Research Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science
Mitsunori Ogihara, PhD | Professor, Department of Computer Science | Director, IDSC Workforce Development and Education | Cooper Fellow, College of Arts and Sciences | Site Director, NSF University of Miami CARTA

Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology | Julian Dallmeier
A neuroscience doctoral student, Julian Dallmeier hopes to gain new insights into Alzheimer’s disease by studying patterns in brain tissues. “Being named an IDSC Fellow is a great honor,” he said. “This program is a great opportunity for young scientists to learn more about data science in their disciplines.”
Dallmeier will apply feature extraction and clustering algorithms to study hyperphosphorylated tau and amyloid plaques—a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease—in his project, “Spatial Clustering Analysis of Corpora Amylacea and Tau in the Hippocampus.” Using tissue samples from UM’s Brain Endowment Bank, Dallmeier will look at clustering patterns of plaque buildup and see if they can be correlated to genetic risk factors.
Dallmeier’s mentors are:

William Scott, PhD | Professor, and Vice-Chair for Education and Training, Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics | Professor of Neurology and Public Health Sciences, UM Miller School of Medicine | Faculty Member, John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics (HIHG) | Executive Director, UM Brain Endowment Bank
Mitsunori Ogihara, PhD | Professor, Department of Computer Science | Director, IDSC Workforce Development and Education | Cooper Fellow, College of Arts and Sciences | Site Director, NSF University of Miami CARTA

Brain-Computer Interface | Kevin Davis
Kevin Davis, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Biomedical Engineering program, will be applying IDSC’s Advanced Computing resources to improve the functions of an implanted brain-computer interface in a homebound patient with chronic cervical spinal cord injury.
“By using machine learning and classification and regression algorithms, I hope to expand the interface we have developed at the UM Brain + Machine Learning Lab,” said Davis. “This could be of great potential benefits to patients with neurological injuries or disease.”
Davis’s project, “Expanding Functional Control of a Fully Implanted Brain-Computer Interface,” involves capturing signals from the brain using a non-invasive technique called electroencephalography and sent to a computer on the patient’s wheelchair. Machine learning and deep learning algorithms would then be used to translate those commands from the brain into hand, wrist, and elbow movements.
Davis’ mentors are:

Abhishek Prasad, PhD | Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Odelia Schwartz, PhD | Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Secondary Faculty in Biology | Principal Investigator, Brain + Machine Learning Lab

Concrete Durability | Mingyue Wu
Mingyue Wu, a doctoral student in the Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering Department, is studying the problem of concrete “creep,” which shortens the lifespan of structures.
“Creep is the long-term deformation of concrete that is driven by sustained loads,” said Wu. “We know that how nanoparticles move under that stress depends on the structure of the local environment, but we don’t yet understand those patterns.”
Wu will apply machine learning techniques to molecular dynamics simulations in her project, “The Role of Cement Nanostructure on the Creep Behavior or Concrete.” She hopes to identify insights that will significantly enhance concrete durability.
Her mentors are:

Luis Ruiz Pestana, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
Melvin Ayala, PhD | IDSC Systems and Data Engineering, and Advanced Computing

Story by Richard Westlund

Meet A Data Scientist Lecture Series Presents Amanda Myers 4/28
2022-04-28 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The Meet a Data Scientist series is a chance to get up close and personal with top-level data science professionals. Join us for a talk with Dr. Amanda Myers, Principal Investigator of the Laboratory for Functional Neurogenomics, with co-appointments in the Division of Neuroscience, the Department of Human Genetics and Genomics, and the Center on Aging.
TALK TITLE: The Human Brainome: Genome, Transcriptome, Proteome and Phenome Interaction in Human Cortex
Dr. Myers’ hypothesis is that changes in gene and protein expression are crucial to the development of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Previously she examined how DNA alleles control the downstream expression of RNA transcripts and how those relationships are changed in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Myers has examined how proteins are incorporated into networks in two separate series and evaluated her outputs in two different cell lines. This lecture will present both the data pipeline as well as the outcomes from these studies. At the conclusion of this discussion, participants will be able to interpret the concepts behind expression quantitative trait loci analysis, compare the differences between single-target eQTL and network effects analysis, and describe new Alzheimer’s risk targets and the evidence for their nomination.
Register Now | Thursday, April 28, 4:00-5:00 PM via Zoom

About Meet a Data Scientist
The Meet a Data Scientist Lecture Series is a chance to get up-close and personal with top-level experts in a wide variety of fields that use data science. The purpose of this series is to introduce the people behind the data, their lives, interests, career choices, their work, and their passion for how they use data to solve grand challenges in their respective fields. Join us as we peer behind the curtain and meet the data scientists behind the data! This lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.

About Amanda
Dr. Amanda Myers has been studying neuroscience since 1993 and human neurogenetics since 1995.
She received her PhD (“The search for novel loci involved in late onset Alzheimer’s disease”) from Washington University in St Louis in May of 2002. While at Washington University, she won a John Merlie Fellowship, an Alzheimer’s Disease Director’s Education Award, and was a finalist for the O’Leary Prize for outstanding research in neuroscience.
She performed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics at the National Institute of Health under the supervision of Dr. John Hardy and was funded by the National Academy of Sciences during that time. She was nominated for a distinguished mentor award during her postdoctoral work.
Dr. Myers has received support from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurologic Disorders and Stroke, and the State of Florida. Her current research involved looking at transcript and protein expression in the cortex and how that is potentially controlled by DNA variants both in normal and Alzheimer’s disease brains.

Disclosure: Dr. Myers has indicated that she has no relevant financial relationship with commercial interests.

Data Citizens Distinguished Lecture Series presents Anant Madabhushi 5/4
2022-05-04 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
Join us for another “Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series” talk on AI in Precision Medicine featuring Dr. Anant Madabhushi. Dr. Madabhushi is the Donnell Institute Professor, Biomedical Engineering, at Case School of Engineering, and the Director for the Center for Computational Imaging & Personalized Diagnostics at Case Western Reserve University.
Data Citizens: A Distinguished Lecture Series is an ongoing course of in-depth talks by experts in the field of data science on a wide variety of topics including data visualization, big data, AI, and predictive analytics. The Data Citizens lecture series is co-sponsored by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and is free and open to the public.
Register Now | Wednesday 5/4, 4:00-5:00 PM
TALK TITLE: “Artificial Intelligence Across Length Scales: Implications for Precision Medicine”
Traditional biology generally looks at only a few aspects of an organism at a time and attempts to molecularly dissect diseases and study them part by part with the hope that the sum of knowledge of parts would help explain the operation of the whole. Rarely has this been a successful strategy to understand the causes and cures for complex diseases.
The motivation for a systems-based approach to disease understanding aims to understand how large numbers of interrelated health variables, gene expression profiling, its cellular architecture and microenvironment, as seen in its histological image features, its 3-dimensional tissue architecture, and vascularization, as seen in dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MRI, and its metabolic features, as seen by Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) or Positron Emission Tomography (PET), result in the emergence of definable phenotypes.
At the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Madabhushi has been developing computerized knowledge alignment, representation, and fusion tools for integrating and correlating heterogeneous biological data spanning different spatial and temporal scales, modalities, and functionalities. These tools include computerized feature analysis methods for extracting subvisual attributes for characterizing disease appearance and behavior on radiographic (radiomics) and digitized pathology images (pathomics).
In this talk, Dr. Madabhushi will discuss the development work in CCIPD on new radiomic and pathomic approaches for capturing intra-tumoral heterogeneity and modeling tumor appearance. He will also focus on how these radiomic and pathomic approaches can be applied to predicting disease outcome, recurrence, progression, and response to therapy in the context of prostate, brain, rectal, oropharyngeal, and lung cancers. Additionally he will also discuss some recent work on looking at use of pathomics in the context of racial health disparity and the creation of more precise and tailored prognostic and response prediction models.
About Anant Madabhushi, PhD
Anant Madabhushi, PhD, is the Donnell Institute Professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland and director of the university’s Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD). He is also a Research Scientist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center and has affiliate appointments both at University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic. He holds secondary appointments in the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Urology, Radiology, Pathology, Radiation Oncology, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and Gen Med Sciences at CWRU.
Madabhushi’s team at CCIPD is developing and applying novel Artificial Intelligence and machine learning approaches for the diagnosis, prognosis, and prediction of therapy response for a variety of diseases including several different types of cancers, cardiovascular disease, kidney, and eye disease. The Center is located in Cleveland’s unique medical ecosystem, an extensive clinical network within which it boasts numerous successful collaborations including with the Cleveland Clinic and the Cole Eye Institute, University Hospitals, the VA Louis Stokes Medical Center, MetroHealth, and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at CWRU.
Madabhushi has more than 100 patents either issued or pending in the areas of medical image analysis, computer-aided diagnosis, and computer vision, more than 75 of which are issued. He was responsible for more than 10 percent of all patents awarded to Case Western Reserve University, every year, since 2017.
The author of more than 450 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers, Madabhushi is a sought-after lecturer who has delivered more than 350 talks around the world. His efforts as a professor and researcher have gained international attention in the field of biomedical engineering, garnering him several awards. Most notably, Madabhushi is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineering (AIMBE), a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). In 2015, he made Crain’s Cleveland Business magazine’s “Forty under 40” list. In 2019, 2020, and 2021 Madabhushi was named to The Pathologist’s Power List, a list of 100 most inspiring professionals in pathology and laboratory medicine. In 2020, he received the Diekhoff Award for Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring at CWRU. In 2021 he was honored as one of Crain’s Cleveland Business Notable Entrepreneurs of the year and also was conferred a Faculty Distinguished Research Award by CWRU.
Madabhushi’s work on developing “smart computers for identifying lung cancer patients who will benefit from chemotherapy” was ranked as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2018 by Prevention Magazine. In 2019, Nature Magazine called him out as one of five scientists pursuing truly offbeat and innovative approaches in cancer research. His work on using AI for addressing health disparities, especially in identifying differences in the appearance of prostate cancer between black and white men, received national attention in 2020.
Madabhushi has secured almost $80 million in grant funding and co-founded two companies, Vascuvis Inc. (now Elucid Bioimaging) and IbRiS Inc., which was acquired by Inspirata in 2015. He has been involved in several sponsored research and industry partnerships with medical imaging and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, more than 30 technologies developed by Madabhushi’s team have been l

Dr. Yelena Yesha Featured Speaker at FLAIRS Conference 5/15-18
2022-05-18 09:00 - 10:00 (Asia/Kolkata) | Hutchinson Shores Resort & Spa, 3793 NE Ocean Blvd, Jensen Beach, FL, 34957, United States
IDSC Innovation Officer Dr. Yelena Yesha will be a featured speaker at the 35th International FLAIRS (the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society) Conference. Her talk title, bio, and abstract are below. Co-hosted by Charles University Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and the University of Miami College of Arts & Sciences, “FLAIRS-35” continues a tradition of presenting and discussing state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and related research in a sociable atmosphere in a beautiful setting. Events include invited speakers, special tracks, tutorials, and presentations of papers, posters, and awards. Traditionally, FLAIRS features not only some of the world’s leading researchers and excellent speakers, but also quality submissions from students.
FLAIRS-35 will take place at the Hutchinson Shores Resort & Spa, the Treasure Coast of Florida’s new premier resort for family vacations, meetings, corporate retreats, oceanfront weddings, and spa getaways. The unique Jensen Beach hotel offers 178 oceanfront accommodations with coastal-inspired decor and private balconies, along with exceptional resort amenities including a signature spa, two outdoor pools, oceanfront dining and more. You’ll also enjoy a spectacular beachfront location perfect for soaking up the sun and cooling off in the surf, while just moments from the area’s legendary fishing and golf courses.
Registration Information
May 15-18, 2022 | Hutchinson Shores Resort & Spa, Hutchinson Island, Jensen Beach, Florida, USA
FLAIRS-35 is planned to run as a mild-hybrid conference. They will have a safe physical conference to the extent possible, but provide an option for online presentation for those who cannot attend the physical conference.
Important Dates | EVENT WEBSITE | Call For Papers | Call for Tutorials

For information about the program, contact:
Michael Franklin (dfrank15@kennesaw.edu) and Fazel Keshtkar (keshtkaf@stjohns.edu)
For Special Tracks and Tutorials Proposals, contact:
Soon Ae Chun (soon.chun@csi.cuny.edu)
For general information about the conference, contact:
Roman Barták (bartak@ktiml.mff.cuni.cz) and Milena Zeithamlová (milena@action-m.com)

Dr. Yelena Yesha’s talk will be on Wed. 5/18 9:00 – 10:00 AM (TBC)
TALK TITLE: Towards a novel ecosystem for transparent integration of Artificial Intelligence in clinical flow
Yelena Yesha, University of Miami, Institute for Data Science & Computing
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI)- and machine learning (ML)-based technologies have the potential to transform healthcare by deriving new and essential insights from the vast amount of data generated during the delivery of healthcare every day. Example high-value applications include earlier disease detection, more accurate diagnosis, identification of new observations or patterns on human physiology, and development of personalized diagnostics and therapeutics. One of the most significant benefits of AI/ML in software resides in its ability to learn from real-world use and experience and its capability to improve its performance. The ability for AI/ML software to learn from real-world feedback (training) and improve its performance (adaptation) makes these technologies uniquely situated among software as a medical device (SaMD) and a rapidly expanding area of research and development. While the FDA has made significant strides in developing appropriately tailored policies for SaMD to ensure the safe and effective technologies reach users, we believe that the next paradigm for device regulation needs to be ready for adaptive AI/ML technologies, which have the potential to adapt and optimize device performance in real-time to improve healthcare for patients continuously. Such change requires an approach based on a new technological ecosystem allowing for continuous testing and following of AI-based devices that facilitates a rapid product improvement cycle and allows these devices to improve continually while providing adequate safeguards. We present here the basis of a novel ecosystem developed between the WVU, Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and the UMiami Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC). This Consortium brings together multidisciplinary expertise in large radiology systems, medical imaging analytics, large clinical data management, ML/AI, radiomics, real-world evidence collection, and regulatory and access to extensive clinical flow and data. The framework is based on three pillars: 1) seamless access of de-identified clinical data from radiology and medical records allowing for preliminary training of novel analytics models, 2) low footprint compliant integration of AI models in the radiological clinical flow, 3) gathering of information and monitoring of performances in conjunction with radiologists and clinical professionals. We conclude with the presentation of opportunities of such systems to support continuous and AI-based regulatory frameworks.
About Dr. Yesha
At the University of Miami, Dr. Yelena Yesha is the Knight Foundation Endowed Chair of Data Science and AI at the Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC). At IDSC, Dr. Yesha is also the Innovation Officer and Head of International Relations. In this role, Dr. Yesha assists faculty in engaging government and industrial partners to collaborate with the University and consults with faculty on developing research ideas into innovations.
Dr. Yesha was the Founding Director of the National Science Foundation Center for Accelerated Real Time Analytics (CARTA), an NSF-funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) that aims to develop long-term partnerships among industry, academia, and government. CARTA partners with Rutgers University New Brunswick, North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Tel Aviv University, and the University of Miami.
Dr. Yesha received her B.Sc. degrees in Computer Science and in Applied Mathematics from York University, Toronto, Canada, and her M.Sc. degree and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from The Ohio State University She has published 11 books as author or editor, and more than 200 papers in prestigious refereed journals and refereed conference proceedings, and she has been awarded external funding in a total amount exceeding 45 million dollars. She is currently working with leading industrial companies and government agencies on new innovative technology in the areas of blockchains, cybersecurity, and big data analytics with applications to electronic commerce, climate change, and digital healthcare. Dr. Yesha is a fellow of the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies.
