Future of Health Data Innovation Lecture by Dr. Rachele Hendricks-Sturrup 12/4
2025-12-04 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom (online)
The Future of Health Data Innovation virtual seminar series continues with a lecture by Dr. Rachele Hendricks-Sturrup. Dr. Hendricks-Sturrup is Research Director of Real-World Evidence at the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy, where she leads work at the intersection of health policy, innovation, and ethics.
TALK TITLE “A Privacy-Centric and Federated Approach to Machine Learning for the Collection and Sharing of Patient-Reported Outcomes Data in Genomic Medicine Research”
Thursday December 4th, 2025 | 11:00 AM-12:oo PM • CME and Accreditation Details
Register Now
The Future of Health Data Innovation seminar series explores practical applications of AI and machine learning in healthcare, helping participants evaluate data-driven solutions for improved clinical outcomes and patient access. For additional information please contact Alexander Gonzalez at alex_gonzalez@miami.edu.

Computation + Journalism Symposium 2025 12/11+12
2025-12-11 09:00 - 2025-12-12 16:00 | Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Drive, Coral Gables, FL, 33146, United States
Authoritarian movements are on the rise worldwide. This has led to the degradation or outright destruction of trustworthy data, and to increasingly hostile environments where attacks on knowledge-creation and -dissemination professions and institutions—journalism and academia included—are becoming everyday news. The Computation + Journalism Symposium (C+J) will cast light on this challenge, aiming to become a forum to discuss how to face it. Join us for two days of talks, workshops, roundtable sessions, and paper presentations.
Thursday and Friday, December 11+ 12, 2025
Day 1 9:00AM-6:30PM (Registration Opens at 8:00 AM, Closing Reception Begins at 6:30 PM)
Day 2 9:00AM-4:00 PM (Registration Opens at 8:00 AM,Event ends at 4:00)
$150 per person | $30 Students • TICKETS include BOTH DAYS, Complimentary Parking, Breakfast and Lunch both days, and a Networking Reception Day One
Keynote Speakers

Attila Bátorfy | Eötvös Loránd University
Attila Bátorfy is a data journalist, media scholar, and professor of journalism and information design at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at Eötvös Loránd University Budapest. Before his academic career, he worked as a journalist for nearly fifteen years. He was previously the head of data at Átlátszó, Hungary’s first investigative journalism outlet. In 2018 he founded with Átlátszó the visual journalism project Átló. He has received numerous awards for his journalistic work. He has published several articles on the authoritarian tendencies and transformation of the Hungarian media system and journalism over the past decade.

Master Instructor, ELTE Faculty of Humanities | Lecturer: Institute for the Theory of Art and Media Studies | Lecturer: Department of Media and Communication
MTMT / Google Scholar
attilabatorfy.com • Facebook • Linkedin • BlueSky
Latest publication: The Hungarian Media System: Unequal Worlds
Book: Adatvizualizáció. Bevezetés az adatok grafikus ábrázolásának elméletébe és módszerébe.

Talk Title: Data journalism in an illiberal regime
Abstract: Two decades ago, most evangelists of data journalism proclaimed that an age of facts and reason was coming. We have many reasons to believe that the opposite has happened. While data journalism methods have become increasingly sophisticated and more data has become available, the impact of this type of content has been limited. This is especially true in a country, Hungary, that has had an authoritarian government for a decade and a half. What has worked so far, what has not worked, and what will never work in data journalism in an illiberal country?

Yevheniia Drozdova | Texty.org.ua (Kyiv, Ukraine)
Yevhenii Drozdova holds a Master’s degree in Media and Communications and began her career in a local newspaper. In 2017, she joined the independent Ukrainian media outlet Texty.org.ua, where she now leads the Data Journalism Section. She is passionate about anthropological stories and often works with satellite imagery to explore social and geopolitical issues.
Since 2023, Yevheniia has served as a jury member for The Sigma Awards, an international data journalism competition. She also enjoys creating interactive data stories that make complex issues accessible to wider audiences.
Talk Title: Guiding Through the Fog: Media’s Role in Narrative Wars
Abstract: In today’s complex information landscape, simply debunking individual fakes is no longer sufficient. Readers need a compass — an approach that helps them navigate competing narratives and understand the intentions behind them.
Texty.org.ua embodies this approach as an independent Ukrainian data journalism outlet. Since 2014, the team has focused on studying disinformation and manipulation in the information space, combining traditional journalism with machine learning and natural language processing. Even before AI became mainstream, Texty was already using these technologies to create large-scale interactive projects that make complex topics accessible to broad audiences.
What challenges arise when preparing such investigations, and is the audience ready to engage and understand them? These are some of the questions we will address.
Texty’s work has earned international recognition, including The Sigma Awards along with multiple European and Ukrainian journalism honors. In 2025, Texty won a Sigma Award for a project that examined manipulations in Telegram channels popular in Ukraine.

Homa Hosseinmardi, PhD | UCLA
Homa Hosseinmardi is an Assistant Professor of Data Science (DataX) and Computational Communication at UCLA, where she directs the OASIS Lab (Online and AI Systems’ Integrity & Safety). Her research takes a holistic, large-scale approach to understanding sociotechnical systems and information ecosystems, with a focus on safety and trustworthiness.She serves as an editor for the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, received the “Outstanding Research Award” during her Ph.D., and co-founded the CyberSafety workshop series. Her work has been featured in major media outlets and published in over 30 peer-reviewed papers, including top venues such as PNAS, Science Advances, TKDE, and IMWUT.
Talk Title: Overexamined Algorithms and Overlooked Agency: Rethinking Online Harm
Abstract: In recent years, critics of online platforms have raised concerns about the ability of recommendation algorithms to amplify problematic content with potentially radicalizing consequences. Yet most attempts to evaluate these claims suffer from a core methodological gap: the absence of appropriate counterfactuals—what users would have encountered without algorithmic recommendations—making it difficult to disentangle the influence of the algorithm from users’ own intentions.
To address this challenge, we first examined the scale of the problem and possible explanations. While we identified several distinct communities of news consumers within YouTube, from moderate to more extreme, we found little evidence that the YouTube recommendation algorithm is actively driving attention to problematic content. Overall, our findings indicate that trends in video-based political news consumption are determined by a complicated combination of user preferences, platform features such as recommendation systems, as well as the supply-and-demand dynamics of the broader web.
We propose a novel method called “counterfactual bots,” which enables us to disentangle the role of the user from platform features on the consumption of highly partisan content. By comparing bots that replicate real users’ consumption patterns with counterfactual bots that follow rule-based trajectories, we show that, on average, relying exclusively on the recommender results in less partisan consumption, with the effect being most pronounced for heavy partisan consumers.

Kae Petrin Data & Graphics Reporter, Civic News Company
Kae Petrin is a data journalist and media educator whose work crosses the intersections of government accountability reporting and LGBTQ+ communities coverage. They are a current John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.
In 2020, they cofounded the Trans Journalists Association with several dozen fellow journalists. Through four years of volunteer work as a board member and Interim Executive Director, they oversaw the organization’s formalization into a 501(c)(3). Kae now serves on the board as President.
As a Data & Graphics Reporter on Civic News Company’s visuals team, they collaborate with local reporters to tell policy and accountability stories about education, voting rights, and public health. Throughout their career in local news they have contributed analysis and visualizations to reporting recognized by regional and national awards. They also served on the board of directors for the St. Louis Pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists from 2017 to 2023.
Kae presents on queer and trans coverage best practices, data reporting and visualization tools, and the collision of these topics for universities, industry conferences, and newsrooms around the U.S.
Talk Title: Malice & government data: What anti-LGBTQ+ policies mean for journalism
Abstract: The Trump administration has gone out of its way to obstruct and remove data collections related to LGBTQ+ Americans. In his first term, this looked like interference with the 2020 Census. Now, it involves mass-censoring the word “gender” to “sex” in scientific datasets and removing some of the few repositories of federal data that we have on LGBTQ+ people. The latter sets back years of research and changes to data collection practices that could have informed policy change. Yet, LGBTQ+ data collection has a dark side: Texas, for instance, has attempted to use data as a tool of state power, to separate families from transgender children and to identify Texans seeking out-of-state medical care. How can journalists work with datasets that might seek to actively misrepresent their content? And how can we responsibly illuminate data that may fill in the absences the government is creating?

Speakers

Alberto Cairo, PhD | UM School of Communication
At the University of Miami, Dr. Cairo is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism and a Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Management teaching classes on visualization and information graphics, and for the Master of Fine Arts in Interactive Media program. In addition, he is the Director of Visualization at The U’s Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC). He holds a BA in Journalism from the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, and MA and PhD degrees from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain. Dr. Cairo has also been a lecturer and professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Described in a Microsoft profile as always in the vanguard of visual journalism, Cairo’s career has tracked alongside the major technological developments in and out of the newsroom. He served as the Director of Infographics of El Mundo online (Spain, 2000-2005) and Editora Globo (Brazil, 2010-2011), and has consulted with—and organized workshops and other training programs for—media organizations and educational institutions in more than 30 countries. He works as a consultant for organizations such as Google News Initiative, NORC at the University of Chicago, the European Commission, and the Congressional Budget Office.
Cairo is a host at The Data Journalism podcast with Simon Rogers and Scott Klein, and the author of four books:

The Art of Insight: How Great Visualization Designers Think (2023)
How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter About Visual Information (2019)
The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication (2016), and
The Functional Art: an Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization (2012).

This year, Cairo is launching the Open Visualization Academy, an open source repository of knowledge about information design and data visualization.

Meg Heckman | Northeastern University
Meg Heckman is an associate professor at Northeastern University in Boston where she explores journalism’s past, present and future. She uses a mix of computational and analog methods to uncover hidden media history narratives and revitalize local news.
Her scholarly work has been published in Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies and the Newspaper Research Journal. She also writes regularly for a variety of general interest and industry publications including WBUR Cognoscenti, Politico Magazine, USA Today, Saturday Evening Post, Poynter, Columbia Journalism Review and Nieman Lab.
Talk Title: AI in local newsrooms
Abstract: Local newsrooms are small, complex organizations that play a vital role in democracy. They are also often at the mercy of Big Tech, struggling to adapt their tools, their workflows and their audiences’ expectations to a relentless parade of technological changes. Just as local news publishers were beginning to find their footing in the digital information ecosystem, they were faced with a new technological revolution: Generative AI. This talk will consider GenAI as the latest in a long line of media innovations that have rocked local news organizations and ponder how its proliferation will impact their ability to foster civic life.

Duy Nguyen | The New York Times
Duy Nguyen is a senior machine-learning engineer on the A.I. Initiatives team at The New York Times. This is Duy’s second tour at The Times, having worked in Opinion Graphics as part of the 2021-22 fellowship class. Since then, he’s been a data scientist at the Brown Institute’s Local News Lab at Columbia Journalism School, helping local newsrooms use A.I. to solve business and audience problems.
In 2021, he was the lead developer of Gumshoe, an A.I. document ranking tool that is now a widely used DocumentCloud extension.
*(sounds like zwi win)
Talk Title: AI at The New York Times
Abstract: One of our mandates at The New York Times’s A.I. Initiatives team is to prototype tools that assist Times journalists in all parts of the reporting process. To that end, my specialty is in three areas:
For newsgathering, it’s media monitoring – tracking, transcribing and summarizing what politicians and prominent figures are saying at scale;
For writing and production, it’s helping reporters generate first drafts of alt texts, SEO headlines, bullet summaries from articles so they can focus on the original reporting;
For publishing, it’s quality control of this A.I.-generated copy. The Times does not publish A.I.-generated copy, so it’s crucial that we build tools that help editors review large amounts of A.I.-generated first drafts and make sure they meet our standards

Location
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI | Coral Gables campus Newman Alumni Center, Multipurpose Room 6200 San Amaro Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146 Map + Directions | Complimentary Parking Info TBA
Symposium Supporters
C+J 2025 is supported by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and by the University of Miami Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) and School of Communication.
Sponsorship Opportunities | Download FLYER
C+J sponsorships give your company or organization a visible presence with over 250 journalists, data storytellers, social scientists, artists, digital humanities scholars, cartographers, and others working at the intersection of computation and journalism. For more information, call us at 305.243.4962, or email idsc@miami.edu.
Keynote Sponsor $15,000

Recognition as Keynote Sponsor in all collateral, electronic communications, and signage including save the date announcement, invitation, program, and pre- and post-event event news articles generated by the University of Miami
Prominent Sponsorship recognition on symposium website with click through link
Recognition as Sponsor in conference opening remarks
Prominent recognition on symposium signage at event
Recognition on your name badge(s) as Keynote Sponsor

Reception Sponsor $10,000

Recognition as Reception Sponsor in all collateral, electronic communications, and signage including save the date announcement, invitation, program, and pre- and post-event event news articles generated by the University of Miami
Prominent Sponsorship recognition on symposium website with click through link
Recognition as Sponsor in conference opening remarks
Prominent recognition on symposium signage at event
Recognition on your name badge(s) as Reception Sponsor

Workshop Sponsor $5,000

Recognition as Contributed Workshop/Session Sponsor on symposium website.
Recognition on symposium signage at event
Recognition on your name badge(s) as Workshop Sponsor

Travel Sponsor $3,000

Help 4 people to attend who would not otherwise be able to do so.
Recognition on your name badge(s) as Travel Sponsor

For more information, call us at 305.243.4962, or email idsc@miami.edu.
Conference Leadership

Alberto Cairo, PhD | Chair (University of Miami)
Rahul Bhargava | Committee Member (Northeastern University)
Nicholas Diakopoulos | Committee Member (Northwestern University)
Evelyn Cruz | Director, Business Operations, Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (University of Miami IDSC)
Jacqueline Green-Allen | Senior Administrative Assistant (University of Miami IDSC)
Helen Gynell | Graphic Designer (University of Miami IDSC)

If you need more info. or for general inquiries about the C+J 2025, contact the Chair, Prof. Alberto Cairo a.cairo@miami.edu

Call for Posters and Demos for IDSC DAY 2026 1/22
2026-01-22 10:00 - 17:00 | Lakeside Village, 1280 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables, 33146, United States
The Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) cordially invites you to the 3rd annual IDSC Day on Thursday, January 22, 2026, at the University of Miami Lakeside Village EXPO CENTER. Demos, posters, and presentations will showcase the impact IDSC has made on the University of Miami, South Florida community, and beyond.

Register Now | Call for Poster and Demo Submissions
Thursday 1/22 | 10:00 AM-5:00 PM
(includes Complimentary Parking, Lunch, and Networking Reception)
This exciting event convenes faculty, staff, students, and industry partners to enable discovery through leading-edge scientific and computational projects that extract hidden knowledge and generate fresh insights from large and complex datasets. At IDSC Day, you can meet our core faculty members and current IDSC Fellows, and discuss their projects, studies, and research interests. There will be demos, posters, and presentations from grant recipients who will discuss how IDSC support has made them more competitive for Federal funding. Toward the end of the day, we will host a relaxed social event, providing opportunities for conversations, learning, and networking.
IDSC is pleased to announce the keynote speakers for the third annual IDSC Day: Ishrat Badami and Rocio Joo
Keynote Speaker | Ishrat Badami, MS

TALK TITLE: Beyond Automation: Shaping Ethical Destiny from Gutenberg to Generative AI
Ms. Ishrat Badami is a technologist and researcher with over 12 years of experience in applied AI research and product development across multiple domains, including robotics, healthcare, visual effects, advertising, and education technology.
She holds a master’s degree in computer vision and machine learning from the University of Bonn, Germany.
She began her journey working on mobile assistive robotics under a European Union research initiative, followed by developing AI systems for elderly care and fall detection. Ishrat later contributed to the evolution of AI-powered visual effects pipelines and spent several years advancing contextual and creative intelligence in ad tech.
She is now focused on building next-generation learning experiences in education technology at a stealth startup. Passionate about bridging research and real-world applications, Ishrat continues to explore how multimodal AI can reshape storytelling, learning, and human–machine collaboration. Read More
Keynote Speaker | Rocío Joo, PhD

TALK TITLE: TBA
Rocío Joo is a senior data scientist on the research and innovation team at Global Fishing Watch. She oversees the development and improvement of the organization’s fishing and vessel behavioral models, while also leading research efforts on forced labor and helping coordinate research partnerships, particularly in Latin America.
Prior to joining Global Fishing Watch, Joo worked at Instituto del Mar del Perú, Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer, France, and the University of Florida in the U.S., conducting fisheries and movement ecology research.
Joo obtained her bachelor’s degree in statistics engineering at Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería in Peru, a master’s degree in biostatistics and her doctorate in ecosystems at Université de Montpellier, France.

Location
University of Miami
Lakeside Village EXPO CENTER (Map + Directions)
1280 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146
Where to Park
Complimentary Reserved Parking is available in the Pavia Garage (see map below) right next to the Lakeside Village (1280 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146). Enter on Pavia Street and tell the attendant you’re here for IDSC Day. You must register your vehicle online. Link Forthcoming. You will need to enter your License Plate Number and State, click NEXT. Enter your Name, click Next, then enter this Code: (pending), and click PARK.
Parking is valid during the hours of TBA a.m. –TBA p.m. only on Thursday, January 22, 2026. NOTE: Please park head in only.

Agenda

9:00 AM
Registration Opens | Light Refreshments

10:00 AM
Welcome Address | Nick Tsinoremas, PhD

10:15 AM
KEYNOTE | Ishrat Badami, MS

11:00 AM
Lightning Talks

12:00 PM
LUNCH | Posters + Demos

1:30 PM
KEYNOTE | Rocio Joo, PhD

2:15 PM
Generative AI PANEL | Kaan Inal, PhD, Moderator

3:00 PM
Introducing New IDSC Joint Faculty

3:30 PM
Closing Remarks

3:35-5:30 PM
NETWORKING RECEPTION | Posters + Demos

Call for Poster and Demo Submissions!
We are excited to invite UM faculty, researchers, students, and our Grants Program Collaborative Data Science awardees to submit posters and demos for IDSC Day 2026. The success of this event truly relies on your participation—your innovative research, creative projects, and cutting-edge work are what will make IDSC Day impactful.
Submission Guidelines

Posters: Share your research, discoveries, or projects through an engaging visual presentation. Max dimensions: 48″’ wide x 36” high or 36″ wide x 48″ high.
Demos: Showcase your interactive or experimental work with live demonstrations.
Submission Deadline: Thursday, January 15, 2026 by midnight
Please Note: IDSC will cover the cost of posters printed in house through the Richter Library Creative Studio. Please email idsc@miami.edu for the account number to give to the Creative Studio attendant.

Submission Form
For additional information, please email idsc@miami.edu or call 305-243-4962.

Join us for an INTRO to IDSC Advanced Computing Systems + Services 1/26 1PM via ZOOM
2026-01-26 13:00 - 14:00 | Zoom (online)
The Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (aka “IDSC” eye-disk) Advanced Computing Systems platform (“ACS”) is hosting an Advanced Computing User Training Session on Monday, January 26, 1:00-2:00 PM via ZOOM. This session is free and open to the public.
This is a light training for newer users of the clusters, or for anyone interested in what IDSC ACS has to offer.
Topics include:

Connecting to the Cluster
How to securely access Triton & Pegasus using SSH and supported login methods.

Transferring Data
Methods for uploading and downloading data between your local system and the cluster.

Navigating the Filesystem
Understanding directory structure and common Linux commands.

Storage
Overview of available storage options and quotas.

Software (Environment/Modules)
Using modules to load and manage software and libraries.

Processing Jobs (LSF)
Submitting, monitoring, and managing batch jobs using the LSF (Load Sharing Facility) scheduler, a powerful workload management platform and job scheduler for HPC environments.

Queues
Explanation of available job queues, their limits, and how to choose the right one.

ACS Landing Page
Central hub for ACS documentation, resources, and support links.

Intro to the IDSC Chatbot: “LeBrain Jones”
An AI assistant that provides quick answers and guidance for IDSC users.

Please REGISTER
The ZOOM link will be emailed to you upon completion of registration. If you have any questions, please contact us at idsc@miami.edu or 305-243-4962.

﻿

Mathematics and Machine Learning for Earth System Simulation 2/2-6/2026
2026-02-02 00:00 - 2026-02-06 23:59 | IPAM at UCLA, 460 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Modern scientific progress is often driven by numerical computations and simulations to represent large numbers of complex and interrelated physical processes. In recent years, machine learning (ML) applications in earth system simulation and prediction have promised to accelerate the accuracy and computational processing power of Earth system models including physics-constrained approaches, super ultra-high resolution, large language models for earth systems, and uncertainty quantification.

“Mathematics and Machine Learning for Earth System Simulation” is a week-long workshop that will bring together experts from diverse fields related to earth system simulation (e.g. computer science, mathematics, atmospheric science, earth system science, etc.) to explore the intersection of mathematics, traditional numerical methods, data assimilation, and cutting-edge machine learning techniques.
Topics that will be discussed include:

Integration of Numerical and Data-Driven Algorithms
Mathematical Operators and Inference
Scale Agnostic Forecasting
Foundation Models for Downstream Tasks

The workshop is hosted by the Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics (IPAM), an NSF Math Institute. The workshop takes place Monday-Friday, February 2-6, 2026, at IPAM on the UCLA campus: 460 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095.
Early Registration Rates
Faculty $75
Government/Military Participant $75
Graduate Student $25
Industry $100
Postdoc $50
Register Now
PLEASE NOTE: Registration fees must be received two weeks in advance of the first day of the workshop to qualify for the early registration fees listed above. After that date, registration fees increase by $10, except for remote participants. There are no refunds of registration fees, barring extenuating circumstances.
Speakers
The current speaker line-up includes:

Tapio Schneider (California Institute of Technology)
Pierre Gentine (Columbia University)
Michael Ghil (UCLA)
Pedram Hassanzadeh (University of Chicago)
David John Gagne (NCAR)
Katherine Breen (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
Dimitrios Giannakis (Dartmouth College)
Po-Lun Ma (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
Jill Johnson (University of Sheffield, UK)
Tom Beucler (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)
Gary Froyland (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Johan Mathé (Atmo AI)
Damian Rouson (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

As well as speakers from the University of Miami:

Mohamed Iskandarani (Department of Ocean Sciences)
Michael Fischer (Department of Ocean Sciences & IDSC Core Faculty)
Milan Curcic, Workshop Co-Organizer (Department of Ocean Sciences & IDSC Core Faculty)

Workshop organizers expect that it will result in a review/perspective paper on the state of the field and the imminent obstacles. Please apply for support and/or register if you’d like to attend.
Financial Support
Those requesting financial support to attend the workshop should apply early. Applications received by Friday, October 31, 2025 will receive fullest consideration. Questions and supporting documents should be sent to the email below. Successful applicants will be notified as soon as funding decisions are made. If you do not need or want to apply for funding, you may simply register. IPAM will close registration if they reach capacity; for this reason, they encourage you to register early.
Funding is available especially to support the attendance of recent PhDs, graduate students, and researchers in the early stages of their career; however, mathematicians and scientists at all levels who are interested in this area are encouraged to apply for funding. Encouraging the careers of women and minority mathematicians and scientists is an important component of IPAM’s mission and they welcome those applications.
Please send your questions and supporting documents to: wcs2026@ipam.ucla.edu
The deadline to apply is Friday, October 31, 2025.
Apply Here
______
Organizing Committee
Katherine Breen, Chair (NASA)
Donifan Barahona (NASA)
Nico Caltabiano (University of Southampton)
Milan Curcic (University of Miami)
Adam Rupe (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
Marcus van Lier-Walqui (Columbia University)

Miami XR 2026: Where Innovation Meets Imagination 2/12+13
2026-02-12 00:00 - 2026-02-13 23:59 | Shalala Student Center Complex, 1330 Miller Drive, Coral Gables, Florida, 33146, United States
Miami XR is back! Join us in Miami for two unforgettable days of discovery, connection, and creativity. Reconnect with the XR community while exploring groundbreaking research, inspiring talks, hands-on demos, interactive session, keynote speakers, and lively after-hours events.
Get ready for fresh ideas, new collaboration, and experiences that will spark creativity, shape careers, and change the future of immersive media.

Visit the website for more information.

Virtual AI Lecture Series Exploring Practical Applications—Andres Sawicki 2/20
2026-02-20 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom (online)
Hosted by Joseph Johnson and Mitsunori Ogihara, this new webinar series promotes the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) among University of Miami faculty, staff, and students, and the surrounding community.
Each session explores practical applications of AI in research, business, and everyday life. The content of these lectures is tailored for a general, non-technical audience and concludes with a Question and Answer session. All lectures take place via ZOOM on Fridays from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, and are free and open to the public. Each session has a separate registration link. An email confirmation containing the ZOOM link will be sent upon completion of registration.
February 20 | Register Now

Andres Sawicki, JD
P R O F E S S O R O F L A W
Director, Business of Innovation, Law, & Technology concentration
SCHOOL OF LAW
D I R E C T O R
Data Ethics & Society
FROST INSTITUTE FOR DATA SCIENCE AND COMPUTING
Prof. Sawicki teaches in the area of intellectual property. His primary research projects explore the extent to which IP can help solve problems in the production of inventions and expressive works. He is particularly interested in the complex psychology of creativity, and in the difficulty of coordinating multiple creative collaborators. Professor Sawicki’s research also examines the interaction among distinct patent doctrines.
Professor Sawicki graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with S.B. degrees in Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Science, Technology, & Society. He then earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 2006, where he was an Articles Editor for the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. After graduation, he clerked for the Honorable Robert D. Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From 2007 through 2010, he worked as an associate in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. His practice focused on intellectual property litigation, especially Hatch-Waxman Act pharmaceutical patent cases. Prior to his appointment at Miami Law, Professor Sawicki was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School.
His work has been published by leading journals, including Cornell Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, and The University of Chicago Law Review, among others. Read more . . .

March 20 | Register Now

Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes, MD
L E C T U R E R
Business Technology Department
MIAMI HERBERT BUSINESS SCHOOL
Prof. Dr. Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes is a visionary leader operating at the intersection of academia, business, government and not-for-profit sectors, recognized globally for her deep tech diplomacy and digital ethics efforts.
With over two decades of executive experience, she has held numerous high-impact leadership roles and has extensive complex system integration expertise, driving the development of responsible, inclusive, diverse, sustainable AI, blockchain and other deep tech innovation ecosystems at a regional, national or international level. Her unique background positions her as a thought leader on how emerging or frontier technologies are posing unique ethical challenges and are reshaping law, regulatory frameworks, corporate governance, risk management, compliance and enterprise digital strategy.
She is an alumna of MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia University, and University of Miami’s Herbert Business School. In addition, she is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, holding executive certifications in AI, Blockchain, Finance, Mediation, Tech Diplomacy, Human Rights, and Ethics. Dr. Vasiliu-Feltes has served as an expert advisor to numerous Fortune 100 and 500 companies, US DOD, IEEE, NIST, and EU, UN or G20-affiliated organizations, guiding them on strategic decisions around digital transformation, digital risk governance, digital trust, and digital cyber-ethics orchestration. Read more . . .
Read this NEWS@TheU PROFILE of Dr. Vasiliu-Feltes: “We have to rethink everything”

April 10 | Registration Link Forthcoming . . .

April Mann, MD
D I S T I N G U I S H E D S E N I O R L E C T U R E R
and Director of the Writing Center
Department of Writing Studies
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

April Mann, EdD, is Director of the Writing Center and is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer in the Department of Writing Studies. She also provides grant-writing support to the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at the Miller School of Medicine. April has been facilitating the College of Arts and Sciences’ Summer Writing Institute with her colleague Adina Sanchez-Garcia since 2015. The Institute helps faculty throughout the college reimagine the ways they can use writing in their courses to improve their students’ disciplinary learning. She and her colleagues are in the process of initiating a Writing Enriched Curriculum program to support faculty in other disciplines who want to effectively use writing assignments in their teaching.
For the past two years, she has been co-facilitating a Faculty Working Group for Teaching with AI. This community of practice brings faculty together to discuss their innovative work with AI in the classroom. She also presented at the Teaching in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 2024 Conference. April is co-author of several publications, most recently “The linguistic leap: Understanding, evaluating, and integrating AI in language education.” Journal of Language Teaching, (with colleagues Shai Cohen, Ludovic Mompelat, and Logan Connors). She has several manuscripts currently under contract or under consideration with colleagues in the Writing Studies Department and the School of Education and Human Development. She is also co-author (with colleagues Ava Brillat and Matthew Kaeiser) of “Crossing the Bridge: Writing and Research Bridge Programming for an Intensive English Program” in PILH: Information Literacy and Writing Studies, Volume II – Upper Level and Graduate Studies. Ed. Grace Veach. Purdue University Press, 2019. She is also the author of “Structure and Accommodation: Autism and the Writing Center”, in Autism Spectrum Disorders in the College Composition Classroom: Making Writing Instruction more Accessible for all Students. Eds. Walsh, Lynda and Gerstle, Val. Marquette University Press, 2011. In addition, she was also a contributor to and reader for Composing Inquiry: Methods and Readings for Investigation and Writing. Margaret Marshall, Prentice Hall, 2004.

Past Speakers
September 26 | Watch Now

Indraneel Chakraborty, PhD |
D E P A R T M E N T C H A I R a n d P R O F E S S O R
Finance Department
MIAMI HERBERT BUSINESS SCHOOL
Dr. Chakraborty received his Ph.D. in finance from Wharton, an M.S. from MIT, and a B.Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (President of India Gold Medalist). He has worked for Citadel Investments and Citigroup Global Markets Inc.’s fixed income divisions. Dr. Chakraborty has won multiple awards for his research and teaching. He received the excellence in teaching award in the Master of Science in Finance program each year from 2018 to 2023). In 2018, Poets and Quants recognized him as one of the top 40 under 40 business school professors. Read more . . .

October 17 | Watch Now

Tom Collins, PhD
A S S O C I A T E P R O F E S S O R
Music Engineering Technology
FROST SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Tom is an Associate Professor of Music Engineering Technology within the Music Engineering program at the Frost School of Music and Principal Investigator of the Music Computing and Psychology Lab (situated in the Frost School of Music). His research concerns the development and application of machine learning techniques for/to music-analytical and music-generative tasks, with projects leading to research papers, reusable code, and collaborations with upcoming and GRAMMY Award-winning artists on songs co-created with AI. The lab also works on audio/music in extended reality (XR/AR/VR), AI for podcasting and game audio, and pattern discovery algorithms applied to coordinated movement in music and athletics.
Dr. Collins has a strong track record in the supervision of PhD students—training them and helping them pursue careers in industry or academia, with recent graduates joining ByteDance, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
In terms of teaching, Dr. Collins offers courses on electronic production technologies, research methods, and music artificial intelligence. Read more . . .

October 31 | Video Link Forthcoming . . .

Joseph Johnson, PhD
A S S O C I A T E P R O F E S S O R
Marketing Department
MIAMI HERBERT BUSINESS SCHOOL
Dr. Johnson teaches Marketing Analytics, New Product Development, Strategic Brand Management and a doctoral seminar on quantitative methods for marketing management. He has thirty-two years of experience, divided between academia and industry, in computerization and empirical models for manufacturing, supply chain and marketing. His current research focuses on the use of AI and text mining tools as a decision aid for managers. Dr. Johnson has created and collaborated in the development of:

Deep learning algorithms for advertising design and testing
Brand management tools using text mining
Customer satisfaction and service quality measurement tools using text mining
Dynamic optimization methods for retail promotions
Media planning tools for big Pharma
Digital media analytics for non-profit organizations
Clinic scheduling model for UM’s clinics
Risk models for predicting post-surgery health outcomes. Read more . . .

November 14 | Video Link Forthcoming . . .
TALK TITLE: “The Future of Making, Teaching, and Learning Music: Exploring Artificial Intelligence and Music”

Reynaldo Sanchez, MM
A S S O C I A T E D E A N
Strategic Initiatives + Innovation
A S S O C I A T E P R O F E S S O R
Music Business + Entertainment
FROST SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Dean Sanchez is a multi-faceted educator and musician. As the Director of the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music Program, he has been responsible for expanding the educational opportunities offered by the Frost School of Music overall. An accomplished multi-tasker, he also serves as Director of the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music Program, an innovative performing and songwriting program curriculum developed with Frost School alumnus Bruce Hornsby to incorporate both American roots music and contemporary composition. The program has become one of the School’s fastest growing areas of study. It also offers those with an interest in electronic music performance an opportunity to become full music majors, a first for a major music school in the U.S. Read more . . .

Virtual AI Lecture Series Exploring Practical Applications—Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes 3/20
2026-03-20 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom (online)
Hosted by Joseph Johnson and Mitsunori Ogihara, this new webinar series promotes the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) among University of Miami faculty, staff, and students, and the surrounding community.
Each session explores practical applications of AI in research, business, and everyday life. The content of these lectures is tailored for a general, non-technical audience and concludes with a Question and Answer session. All lectures take place via ZOOM on Fridays from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, and are free and open to the public. An email confirmation containing the ZOOM link will be sent upon completion of registration.
March 20 | Register Now

Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes, MD
L E C T U R E R
Business Technology Department
MIAMI HERBERT BUSINESS SCHOOL
Prof. Dr. Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes is a visionary leader operating at the intersection of academia, business, government and not-for-profit sectors, recognized globally for her deep tech diplomacy and digital ethics efforts.
With over two decades of executive experience, she has held numerous high-impact leadership roles and has extensive complex system integration expertise, driving the development of responsible, inclusive, diverse, sustainable AI, blockchain and other deep tech innovation ecosystems at a regional, national or international level. Her unique background positions her as a thought leader on how emerging or frontier technologies are posing unique ethical challenges and are reshaping law, regulatory frameworks, corporate governance, risk management, compliance and enterprise digital strategy.
She is an alumna of MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia University, and University of Miami’s Herbert Business School. In addition, she is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, holding executive certifications in AI, Blockchain, Finance, Mediation, Tech Diplomacy, Human Rights, and Ethics. Dr. Vasiliu-Feltes has served as an expert advisor to numerous Fortune 100 and 500 companies, US DOD, IEEE, NIST, and EU, UN or G20-affiliated organizations, guiding them on strategic decisions around digital transformation, digital risk governance, digital trust, and digital cyber-ethics orchestration. Read more . . .
Read this NEWS@TheU PROFILE of Dr. Vasiliu-Feltes: “We have to rethink everything”

April 10 | Registration Link Forthcoming . . .

April Mann, MD
D I S T I N G U I S H E D S E N I O R L E C T U R E R
and Director of the Writing Center
Department of Writing Studies
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

April Mann, EdD, is Director of the Writing Center and is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer in the Department of Writing Studies. She also provides grant-writing support to the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at the Miller School of Medicine. April has been facilitating the College of Arts and Sciences’ Summer Writing Institute with her colleague Adina Sanchez-Garcia since 2015. The Institute helps faculty throughout the college reimagine the ways they can use writing in their courses to improve their students’ disciplinary learning. She and her colleagues are in the process of initiating a Writing Enriched Curriculum program to support faculty in other disciplines who want to effectively use writing assignments in their teaching.
For the past two years, she has been co-facilitating a Faculty Working Group for Teaching with AI. This community of practice brings faculty together to discuss their innovative work with AI in the classroom. She also presented at the Teaching in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 2024 Conference. April is co-author of several publications, most recently “The linguistic leap: Understanding, evaluating, and integrating AI in language education.” Journal of Language Teaching, (with colleagues Shai Cohen, Ludovic Mompelat, and Logan Connors). She has several manuscripts currently under contract or under consideration with colleagues in the Writing Studies Department and the School of Education and Human Development. She is also co-author (with colleagues Ava Brillat and Matthew Kaeiser) of “Crossing the Bridge: Writing and Research Bridge Programming for an Intensive English Program” in PILH: Information Literacy and Writing Studies, Volume II – Upper Level and Graduate Studies. Ed. Grace Veach. Purdue University Press, 2019. She is also the author of “Structure and Accommodation: Autism and the Writing Center”, in Autism Spectrum Disorders in the College Composition Classroom: Making Writing Instruction more Accessible for all Students. Eds. Walsh, Lynda and Gerstle, Val. Marquette University Press, 2011. In addition, she was also a contributor to and reader for Composing Inquiry: Methods and Readings for Investigation and Writing. Margaret Marshall, Prentice Hall, 2004.

Past Speakers

September 26 | Watch Now

Indraneel Chakraborty, PhD |
D E P A R T M E N T C H A I R a n d P R O F E S S O R
Finance Department
MIAMI HERBERT BUSINESS SCHOOL
Dr. Chakraborty received his Ph.D. in finance from Wharton, an M.S. from MIT, and a B.Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (President of India Gold Medalist). He has worked for Citadel Investments and Citigroup Global Markets Inc.’s fixed income divisions. Dr. Chakraborty has won multiple awards for his research and teaching. He received the excellence in teaching award in the Master of Science in Finance program each year from 2018 to 2023). In 2018, Poets and Quants recognized him as one of the top 40 under 40 business school professors. Read more . . .

October 17 | Watch Now

Tom Collins, PhD
A S S O C I A T E P R O F E S S O R
Music Engineering Technology
FROST SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Tom is an Associate Professor of Music Engineering Technology within the Music Engineering program at the Frost School of Music and Principal Investigator of the Music Computing and Psychology Lab (situated in the Frost School of Music). His research concerns the development and application of machine learning techniques for/to music-analytical and music-generative tasks, with projects leading to research papers, reusable code, and collaborations with upcoming and GRAMMY Award-winning artists on songs co-created with AI. The lab also works on audio/music in extended reality (XR/AR/VR), AI for podcasting and game audio, and pattern discovery algorithms applied to coordinated movement in music and athletics.
Dr. Collins has a strong track record in the supervision of PhD students—training them and helping them pursue careers in industry or academia, with recent graduates joining ByteDance, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
In terms of teaching, Dr. Collins offers courses on electronic production technologies, research methods, and music artificial intelligence. Read more . . .

October 31 | Watch Now (link forthcoming)

Joseph Johnson, PhD
A S S O C I A T E P R O F E S S O R
Marketing Department
MIAMI HERBERT BUSINESS SCHOOL
Dr. Johnson teaches Marketing Analytics, New Product Development, Strategic Brand Management and a doctoral seminar on quantitative methods for marketing management. He has thirty-two years of experience, divided between academia and industry, in computerization and empirical models for manufacturing, supply chain and marketing. His current research focuses on the use of AI and text mining tools as a decision aid for managers. Dr. Johnson has created and collaborated in the development of:

Deep learning algorithms for advertising design and testing
Brand management tools using text mining
Customer satisfaction and service quality measurement tools using text mining
Dynamic optimization methods for retail promotions
Media planning tools for big Pharma
Digital media analytics for non-profit organizations
Clinic scheduling model for UM’s clinics
Risk models for predicting post-surgery health outcomes. Read more . . .

November 14 | Watch Now (link forthcoming)

Reynaldo Sanchez, MM
A S S O C I A T E D E A N
Strategic Initiatives + Innovation
A S S O C I A T E P R O F E S S O R
Music Business + Entertainment
FROST SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Dean Sanchez is a multi-faceted educator and musician. As the Director of the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music Program, he has been responsible for expanding the educational opportunities offered by the Frost School of Music overall. An accomplished multi-tasker, he also serves as Director of the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music Program, an innovative performing and songwriting program curriculum developed with Frost School alumnus Bruce Hornsby to incorporate both American roots music and contemporary composition. The program has become one of the School’s fastest growing areas of study. It also offers those with an interest in electronic music performance an opportunity to become full music majors, a first for a major music school in the U.S. Read more . . .

February 20 | Register Now

Andres Sawicki, JD
P R O F E S S O R O F L A W
Director, Business of Innovation, Law, & Technology concentration
SCHOOL OF LAW
D I R E C T O R
Data Ethics & Society
FROST INSTITUTE FOR DATA SCIENCE AND COMPUTING
Prof. Sawicki teaches in the area of intellectual property. His primary research projects explore the extent to which IP can help solve problems in the production of inventions and expressive works. He is particularly interested in the complex psychology of creativity, and in the difficulty of coordinating multiple creative collaborators. Professor Sawicki’s research also examines the interaction among distinct patent doctrines.
Professor Sawicki graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with S.B. degrees in Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Science, Technology, & Society. He then earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 2006, where he was an Articles Editor for the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. After graduation, he clerked for the Honorable Robert D. Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From 2007 through 2010, he worked as an associate in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. His practice focused on intellectual property litigation, especially Hatch-Waxman Act pharmaceutical patent cases. Prior to his appointment at Miami Law, Professor Sawicki was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School.
His work has been published by leading journals, including Cornell Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, and The University of Chicago Law Review, among others. Read more . . .

Smart Cities MIAMI 2026: 10 Years of Lessons, Leaps, and the Road Ahead 3/26
2026-03-26 09:00 - 17:00 | Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Drive, Coral Gables, FL, 33146, United States
Save the Date: Thursday, March 26, 2026 for the 10th edition of the University of Miami Smart Cities MIAMI Conference. We are celebrating a decade of innovation and progress in building smart cities as we envision the future.
Register Now | $50 per person*
*Attendance for University of Miami Faculty, Staff, and Students is complimentary. Please email idsc@miami.edu for the PROMO CODE.
We are excited to announce our keynote speakers: Patrick Murphy, CEO of Togal AI and Dr. Dan M. Frangopol, a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
The morning session opens with an Industry Expo showcasing cutting-edge technologies from faculty innovators, start-ups, and major corporations. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage directly with solution providers and end-users influencing the future of urban environments.
The afternoon session brings together thought leaders and experts for keynote talks and interactive panel discussions on smart city concepts. The discussion is organized around three core themes:

Built Environment and Infrastructure (BEI) focuses on how to construct smart cities. This panel transitions the conversation from software as a service to the physical built environment. Panelists will explore how advances in AI and technologies are enabling cities to better sense and respond to people’s needs. Attendees will gain insights through real-world case studies and discover how smart cities are transforming the way we live.
Health and Wellbeing (HW) focuses on leveraging smart technologies to improve the well-being in our communities. Panelists will focus the discussion on sensors, innovative technologies, and other digital platforms that monitor health, advance precision medicine, improve hospital efficiency and effectiveness, and promote better public health outcomes.
Community and Resilience (CR) focuses on smart city technologies that can strengthen community resilience and enhance the ability for communities to prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural hazards.

Agenda TBA
Location
Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146

Keynote Speakers

Patrick Murphy | CEO, Togal AI
With a background in government and a passion for innovation, Patrick transitioned into the world of construction technology to drive impactful change. As Managing Director of Renco and Founder of Togal AI, he is dedicated to revolutionizing the construction industry by implementing greener, more advanced, and efficient solutions. His work focuses on integrating AI to streamline processes, reduce costs, and make construction more sustainable. From enhancing estimation accuracy to developing materials that minimize environmental impact, Patrick is committed to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in construction tech.

Dan M. Frangopol, PhD | NAE Life-Cycle Management + Member, National Academy of Engineering
Dr. Dan Frangopol is the inaugural Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture Emeritus at Lehigh University. Before joining Lehigh University in 2006, he was Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he is now Professor Emeritus. He is recognized as a leader in the field of life-cycle engineering of civil and marine structures. Dr. Frangopol is the Founding President of both the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety (IABMAS) and the International Association for Life-Cycle Civil Engineering (IALCCE).
Frangopol is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Construction, and a foreign member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Mexican Academy of Engineering, Academy of Europe (London), Engineering Academy of Japan, Royal Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, Romanian Academy, and Romanian Academy of Technical Sciences. He is a distinguished member of ASCE, founder and editor-in-chief of Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, and holds 5 honorary doctorates and 14 honorary professorships from major universities. He has authored/co-authored 5 books, more than 70 book chapters, and over 500 articles in refereed journals including 15 award-winning papers.
In 2023, ASCE established the Dan M. Frangopol Medal for Life-Cycle Engineering of Civil Structures.
Read Dr. Frangopol’s full profile here.

Speakers

Tom Merrick, MA | Sr. Project Manager, XR Initiatives, University of Miami Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) Creative Technologies program + Adjunct Professor, School of Communication
Tom Merrick, Assistant Director of VR/AR Initiatives, is a seasoned educator and technology enthusiast. He holds a BS in Information Engineering from Cornell and an MA in Independent School Leadership from Columbia. With 15 years of experience in education, including roles as a Math Director and School Administrator, Tom brings a unique perspective on technology’s role in learning.
Tom’s journey led him to accept a fellowship at Stanford University’s Distinguished Career Institute (DCI), where he discovered the potential of Virtual Reality to revolutionize education. He taught VR courses at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab and continued as an educator with Stanford Continuing Education. Now, at the University of Miami, Tom is passionate about teaching “Intro to VR” while exploring innovative ways to support faculty and students in harnessing immersive technologies for transformative learning experiences. His expertise and vision are integral to our mission of reshaping education through VR and AR.

Helena Solo-Gabriele, PhD | Professor, University of Miami College of Engineering Department of Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering
Dr. Helena Solo-Gabriele is a Professor at the University of Miami Department of Environmental Engineering where she teaches courses in environmental measurements, environmental engineering microbiology, and in water treatment systems. Her research focuses on problems that relate the environment to human health. She conducts studies to identify sources of microbial contamination, uses wastewater to understand the spread of disease in communities, and evaluates sources and movement of arsenic in the environment. Her current active projects focus on evaluating the use of ultraviolet light for disinfecting street and sidewalk surfaces, using wastewater to track dengue virus spread, and evaluating the fate of arsenic at beaches from the seaweed called sargassum.

Deborah Franqui, PhD, AIA, NCARB, EDAC | Lecturer, University of Miami School of Architecture
Dr. Deborah Franqui is a healthcare research and planning leader whose work integrates rigorous methodology with innovative design solutions. With a B.Arch, MS, and PhD from Cornell and Clemson University, she has conducted more than 30 post-occupancy evaluations across diverse healthcare departments, translating findings into actionable, evidence-based design guidelines. Her expertise spans Lean planning, operational and space-efficiency optimization, and user experience enhancement. Dr. Franqui’s research-driven design frameworks and design-checklist methodologies—presented at nationally recognized healthcare design conferences—continue to influence best practices and elevate outcomes for healthcare facilities and the communities they serve.

Maurice Jenkins, IAP CM | Chief Innovation Officer, Miami-Dade County, Aviation Department
With more than thirty years of experience committed to achieving strategic growth and technology objectives for MIA, Maurice Jenkins has been a keen adopter to self-service technologies and has encouraged airlines serving the airport to embrace innovation also. Prior to his role as a CIO, Mr. Jenkins was responsible for defining and managing IT capital assets and IT management processes to ensure their successful implementation and project integration. In addition, he served as the Aviation Department’s Chief Information Officer/Director of Information Systems, responsible for the development and implementation of standards‐based policies and procedures that support business operations which improved the overall quality of service of enterprise IT systems. His strategic vision has successfully culminated in the integration of new technology in the opening of the new South and North Terminals at Miami International Airport. In addition, the success of these new system implementations such as Biometrics, Virtual Queuing and new innovating technologies show his technical acumen and dedication to serve the residents of Miami‐Dade County.
Mr. Jenkins has implemented an area wide marketing information service to both hotels and conventions centers using current flight information data from Miami International Airport. AAAE and ACI best in practice initiatives are strictly adhered to that display his commitment to providing the highest level of service governed by industry standards. He graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Computer Information Systems. He also earned certifications in Strategic Management from Florida International University and Human Resources Management from Nova Southeastern University. He served as the Chairman of the Business Information Technology Committee (BIT), which was established by Airports Council International (ACI) to set strategic objectives future technology direction for airports. He was also served as Chairman of the Florida Airports Council’s Information Technology Committee from February 2019 until December 2021. Mr. Jenkins has given presentations on implementation solutions to key IT leaders and airport IT conferences in the U.S. and internationally sharing his proven successful practices with his peer group.

Brian Freed, CFA | CEO, Illuminex AI
Brian Freed, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), has a career path that reflects a unique blend of experience in business analysis as well as successful operational execution in the establishment and growth of new businesses focused on data-centric applications.
As the CEO of Illuminex AI, Brian is committed to democratizing the implementation of Computer Vision and AI with a focus on bespoke applications where challenges such as data scarcity and technical integration hinder the development of precise and cost-effective solutions. He has a proven track record of driving growth in both startup and globally established environments. His extensive financial background and broad technical knowledge make him a proven leader in solution development, strategic alliances, go-to-market strategies, and sales.
Before joining Illuminex AI, Brian held the position of Chief Operating Officer at Eagle Aerospace, a company specializing in Airfield Technology solutions. He also served as the COO for Phizzle, a developer of IoT software that facilitated remote monitoring and control of quality and compliance solutions used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Prior to these roles, Brian was the General Manager of the High-Performance Data Analytics (HPDA) business unit at SGI. He established this unit from scratch and successfully grew it to a $50M annual run rate.
In addition to his experience in the tech industry, Brian spent 13 years on Wall Street as a Chartered Financial Analyst. During this time, he focused exclusively on research, financial modeling, and stock recommendations for companies specializing in High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Data Lifecycle technologies.

Xu Sun, PhD AMASCE | Assistant Professor, Department of Management Science, Miami Herbert Business School
and Co-Founder & CEO, AIWaysion, Inc.

Xu Sun is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Science at the Miami Herbert Business School, University of Miami. He studies how applied probability, optimization, and data-driven analytics can be used to design intelligent and resilient service systems in smart cities. His research develops online algorithms for real-time decision-making under uncertainty, with applications in call centers, emergency response, smart manufacturing, and energy and mobility systems.
Before joining the University of Miami, Professor Sun was an Assistant Professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Columbia University. His work has appeared in leading journals in operations research and management science, and he has received recognition from INFORMS, the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), and the University of Miami.

Brian Brooke, MPP MBA | Executive Vice President, AIWaysion

Brian Brooke is Executive Vice President at AIWaysion, bringing over twenty-five years of experience in project management, organizational development, research, market strategy, pricing, and policy development. Before joining AIWaysion, Brian established and led the Research and Innovation team at Sound Transit, the Seattle region’s largest transit agency. In that role, he built and directed a portfolio of data-driven initiatives and cross-sector partnerships to improve customer and community satisfaction, operational efficiency, accessibility, equity, and the long-term sustainability of regional mobility.
Earlier in his career, Brian held roles at King County, R.B. Webber, the City of Seattle, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and PACCAR, giving him deep experience across the public sector, private industry, and consulting. Brian holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School, and a BA in Economics from the University of Washington.

Exhibitors
AIWaysion
Leveraging AI and Edge Computing for Safer and More Efficient Transportation
AIWaysion develops next-generation Connected Vehicle technology and provides Smart Mobility Solutions using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Edge Computing technologies for safer and more efficient transportation.
