On July 25, 2024, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) announced the election of Dr. Yelena Yesha to its Board of Directors. Dr. Yesha will also serve on ICMEC’s Global Technology Committee to support efforts to further the organization’s impact and influence on existing and emerging child protection technologies.

Bob Cunningham, ICMEC CEO said “Dr. Yesha’s appointment marks the acceleration of an exciting new chapter for ICMEC. With her emphasis on technology, education, and innovation, she will play a pivotal role in advancing our mission to safeguard children. Her intellect, passion, and wealth of experience promise to unlock new possibilities for ICMEC, our partners, and the children we all work together to protect. We are truly appreciative of her commitment to driving our efforts forward.”

About the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC)
Over the last two decades, ICMEC has worked in more than 120 countries, empowering the global community with the tools, training and technology to create a safer world for children. They work to protect children around the world from going missing by providing resources for governments, law enforcement, NGOs, and families on prevention as well as the appropriate actions to take in the event a child does go missing.

ICMEC partners with leading technology companies and the financial industry to identify and develop new global solutions that protect children from sexual abuse, exploitation, and the risk of going missing. They advocate for changes in laws, treaties, and systems to protect children worldwide. Through The Koons Family Institute on International Law & Policy, ICMEC conducts and commissions original research into the status of child protection laws around the world. By creating replicable legal tools, promoting best practices, building international coalitions, and collaborating with partners in the field to identify and measure threats to children, they bring about change in the way children are protected around the world.

In addition, ICMEC provides tools, training, and technology to governments, law enforcement, policymakers, industry, civil society, educators, healthcare professionals, and others across the globe with one goal in mind: to make the world a safer place for all children.

Strong partnerships play a vital role in protecting our children, particularly as the crisis of child victimization is exacerbated by the Internet. ICMEC collaborates globally with civil society, governments, and private industry, encouraging partnerships and coordination.

About Dr. Yesha

At the University of Miami, Dr. Yelena Yesha is the Knight Foundation Endowed Chair of Data Science and AI. At the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC), Dr. Yesha is also the Director for the Machine Learning and AI program, as well as Innovation Officer and Head of International Relations. In her Innovation 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 230 papers in prestigious refereed journals and refereed conference proceedings, and she has been awarded external funding in a total amount exceeding $65 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. Forbes magazine highlighted Dr. Yesha’s accomplishments in technology in a two-part profile: Part I: Dr. Yelena Yesha: Meet The Tenacious Pioneer Pushing Innovation To Address Real World Problems, and Part II: Dr. Yelena Yesha: Pushing Technology Boundaries To Solve The World’s Biggest Problems. Forbes also covered her recent work with NASA in a November 2023 article, Revolutionizing Satellite Security: NASA’s Groundbreaking Project To Integrate AI, Blockchain, & Nanosatellites.