Speaker / Panelist Bios

Keynotes

  • Hu, Jianying

    Jianying Hu, PhD, Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences Research; Global Science Leader, AI for Health at IBM 

    About: Jianying Hu is an IBM Fellow and Global Science Leader of AI for Healthcare at IBM. She is also Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Hu joined IBM in 2003 after working at Bell Labs. She has over 30 years of experience conducting and leading research on machine learning, with recent focus on AI enabled acceleration of scientific discovery in health. Dr. Hu has served on many editorial and advisory boards, most recently on the NASEM Committee on Establishing a Framework for Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation in Health and Medicine, and the External Advisory Board of the NIH AIM-AHEAD Program. Dr. Hu is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, IEEE, and the International Association of Pattern Recognition. 

     

     

  • Maes, Pattie

    Pattie Maes, PhD, Germeshausen Professor at MIT Media Lab

    About: Pattie Maes is the Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab. She runs the  Fluid Interfaces research group, which does research at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence with a focus on applications in health, wellbeing and learning.  Maes is also a faculty member in MIT’s center for Neuro-Biological Engineering. She is particularly interested in the topic of cognitive enhancement, or how wearable, immersive and brain-computer interface systems can actively assist people with issues such as memory, attention, learning, decision making, communication, wellbeing, and sleep.

    Maes is the editor of four books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She has received several awards: Netguru selected her for “Hidden Heroes: the people who shaped  technology (2022), Time Magazine has included several of her designs in its annual list of inventions of the year;  AAAI gave her the “classic paper 2012”  prize, awarded to the most influential AI paper of the year,  Fast Company named her one of 50 most influential designers (2011); Newsweek picked her as one of the “100 Americans to watch for” in the year 2000; TIME Digital selected her as a member of the “Cyber Elite,” the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title “Global Leader for Tomorrow”; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the “Lifetime Achievement Award” by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. She also received honorary doctorates from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and Open Universiteit, Netherlands, and has given several TED talks.

    In addition to her academic endeavors, Maes has been an active entrepreneur as co-founder of several venture-backed companies, including Firefly Networks (sold to Microsoft), Open Ratings (sold to Dun & Bradstreet) and Tulip Co (privately held). She is an advisor to several early stage companies, including Earable, Inc, and Spatial, Inc. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. She holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a PhD in artificial intelligence from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.

     

SPeakers

  • Ghassemi, Marzyeh

    Marzyeh Ghassemi, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

    About: Dr. Marzyeh Ghassemi is an Associate Professor at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES). She holds MIT affiliations with the Jameel Clinic, LIDS, IDSS, and CSAIL. For examples of short- and long-form talks Professor Ghassemi has given, see her Forbes lightning talk, and her ICML keynote.

    Professor Ghassemi holds a Germeshausen Career Development Professorship, and was named a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar and one of MIT Tech Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35. In 2024, she received an NSF CAREER award, and Google Research Scholar Award. Prior to her PhD in Computer Science at MIT, she received an MSc. degree in biomedical engineering from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar, and B.S. degrees in computer science and electrical engineering as a Goldwater Scholar at New Mexico State University.

    Professor Ghassemi work spans computer science and clinical venues, including NeurIPS, KDD, AAAI, MLHC, JAMIA, JMIR, JMLR, AMIA-CRI, Nature Medicine, Nature Translational Psychiatry, and Critical Care. Her work has been featured in popular press such as MIT News, The Boston Globe, and The Huffington Post.

     

  • Kahana, Michael

    Michael Kahana, PhD, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Psychology at theUniversity of Pennsylvania; CEO at nia Therapeutics

    About: Michael Kahana is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. For three decades, he has studied human memory and its neural basis using behavioral, computational, and electrophysiological methods. Kahana is the author of more than 230 peer-reviewed journal articles, co-editor of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Memory, and author of “Foundations of Human Memory,” also published by Oxford University Press. 

    In 2002, Kahana and his then-graduate student, Marc Howard, published their retrieved-context theory of episodic memory, which has become one of the most widely cited and actively developed theories of memory. Kahana and his early trainees, including Dan Rizzuto, pioneered the study of human memory electrophysiology in neurosurgical patients undergoing invasive electrode monitoring. This work identified and characterized the functional role of theta oscillations in the human brain. Kahana and his students discovered and documented the properties of place cells, grid cells, goal cells and most recently time cells using single unit recording methods in collaboration with Dr. Itzhak Fried of UCLA. Kahana’s group also used the high spatial and temporal resolution of direct brain recordings to identify patterns of brain network activity underlying successful memory encoding, retrieval, and reinstatement. 

    Seeking to apply his basic research to the treatment of memory loss, Kahana and Nia Therapeutics co-founder, Dr. Dan Rizzuto, embarked on an ambitious program to build the world’s largest dataset examining the effect of electrical stimulation on memory and its neural correlates. This $30M project, funded under the cross-agency Human Brain Initiative, led to numerous discoveries about the neural basis of human memory and the use of neuromodulation to manipulate memory function in the brain. 

    Kahana is presently on leave from the University of Pennsylvania, working at Nia Therapeutics. His goal is to initiate a feasibility study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of AI-guided closed-loop neurostimulation for treating memory loss in patients with traumatic brain injury. 

    Kahana has received several major awards for his research, including the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences, the inaugural Mid-Career Award from the Psychonomic Society, the Howard Crosby Warren Medal from the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Grossman Award from the Society of Neurological Surgeons. 

     

  • Sliwinski, Martin J.

    Martin J. Sliwinski, PhD, Director of the Center for Healthy Aging, Gregory H. Wolf Professor of Aging Studies, Director of the Penn State Geroscience and Dementia Prevention Consortium, and Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State University

    About: Dr. Sliwinski’s work focuses on improving the measurement of cognitive change with applications in cognitive aging and dementia prevention. His research explores how fluctuations in cognitive performance—shaped by factors such as stress, social interactions, and physical activity—can reveal early signs of cognitive decline and inform strategies for maintaining brain health. Dr. Sliwinski has led the development of innovative methods for assessing cognition in real-world settings, including the Mobile Monitoring of Cognitive Change (M2C2) platform, which leverages mobile technology to capture high-frequency, in-the-moment cognitive data. His research emphasizes dynamic phenotyping of daily experiences and cognitive function, examining their inter-relationships across multiple timescales, from micro-changes over days to long-term trajectories over years. By embedding ambulatory cognitive assessments into ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and daily diary designs, his projects capture frequent, real-time snapshots of cognitive function, behavior, psychological states, and environmental exposures in people’s natural environments, advancing tools for monitoring and promoting cognitive health. 

     

     

  • Smoller, Jordan

    Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD, lead PI of the New England Precision Medicine Consortium as part of the NIH All of Us Research Program and co-Chair of the All of Us Science Committee; Jerrold F. Rosenbaum Endowed Chair in Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital; Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health

    About: Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD is a psychiatrist, epidemiologist, and geneticist whose research focus has been understanding the genetic and environmental determinants of psychiatric disorders across the lifespan and using big data to advance precision mental health including improved methods to reduce risk and enhance resilience.   

    Dr. Smoller is the Jerrold F. Rosenbaum Endowed Chair in Psychiatry, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. He is Associate Chief for Research in the MGH Department of Psychiatry, Director of the Center for Precision Psychiatry, Director of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit in the MGH Center for Genomic Medicine, and co-Director of the Center for Suicide Research and Prevention at MGH and Harvard. Dr. Smoller is a Tepper Family MGH Research Scholar, Director of the Omics Unit of the MGH Division of Clinical Research, co-Director of the Mass General Brigham Training Program in Precision and Genomic Medicine, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute, of MIT and Harvard. 

    He has played a leading role in national and international efforts to advance precision medicine. He is a Principal Investigator (PI) in the eMERGE (Electronic Medical Records and Genomics) network, founding PI of the PsycheMERGE Consortium and lead PI of the New England Precision Medicine Consortium as part of the NIH All of UsResearch Program.  Dr. Smoller is an author of more than 600 scientific publications and is also the author of The Other Side of Normal (HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2012). 

     

  • Walsh, Conor

    Conor Walsh, PhD, Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the John A. Paulson Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Founder Harvard Biodesign Lab

    About: Conor Walsh is the Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the John A. Paulson Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and an Associate Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. He is the is the founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab, which brings together researchers from the engineering, industrial design, apparel, biomechanics, physical therapy and business communities to develop and translate new disruptive robotic technologies for augmenting and restoring human performance. Example application areas include, enhancing the mobility of healthy individuals, restoring the mobility of patients with gait deficits, assisting those with upper extremity weakness to perform activities of daily living and preventing injuries of workers performing physically strenuous tasks.

    His multidisciplinary research spans engineering, biology and medicine and has led to multiple high impact scientific papers. The soft exosuit technology is now commercially available in clinics for gait retraining through a collaboration with ReWalk Robotics and a lab spin-out, Verve Motion, has launched a back assist product for workers performing physically strenuous tasks in industry. He has been invited to give talks at government, industry and academic events and has served on research review panels including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. He is dedicated to training the next generation of biomedical engineering innovators and lab alumni have gone on to successful careers in academia, entrepreneurship, and high tech R&D positions in industry.

    Additionally, he co-founded the Soft Robotics Toolkit that serves as a platform the lab’s extensive STEM outreach activities. He is the winner of multiple awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Early Academic Career Award in Robotics and Automation from the IEEE RAS, the National Science Foundation Career Award and the MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 Award.

     

  • Weber, Griffin

    Griffin Weber, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School

    About: Griffin M Weber, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School (HMS). He is also the Faculty Lead of Harvard’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Informatics Program and Director of the Biomedical Research Informatics Core (BRIC) at BIDMC. Dr. Weber helped develop Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2), an open-source platform for query and analysis of clinical data, and the Shared Health Research Information Network (SHRINE), which connects i2b2 and OMOP databases across organizations to form federated research data networks. He also created the Profiles RNS website, which is used by dozens of medical schools and research organizations to create searchable online profiles of their investigators. Dr. Weber is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI), in recognition of his contributions to the field of medical informatics.

     

panelists

  • Anderson, Brian

    Brian Anderson, MD, CEO, Coalition for Health AI (CHAI)

    About: Dr. Brian Anderson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) where he leads a national coalition in the development of technical standards and best practices for MLOps, including governance, testing, evaluation and monitoring in Health AI
    Assurance Labs.

    Prior to CHAI, Dr. Anderson was the Chief Digital Health Physician at MITRE where he led research and development efforts across major strategic initiatives in Digital Health, including partnering with the United States Government and private sector organizations. He was responsible for leading MITRE’s efforts in Advancing Clinical Trials at the Point of Care (ACT@POC), an effort that develops digital tools and approaches to support more diverse and efficient pragmatic clinical trials in Cancer and other diseases. He was also the co-PI on MITRE’s largest Health R&D effort in Oncology, supporting Cancer Moonshot efforts.

    Dr. Anderson is an internationally recognized expert and author in digital health and Health AI; he is regularly engaged as a speaker on digital health innovation, Health AI assurance and best practices, health standards development, clinical decision support systems, and interoperability.
    Prior to MITRE, Dr. Anderson led the Informatics and Network Medicine Division at Athenahealth where he launched a new approach to clinical decision support leveraging machine learning models. He has also served on several national health information technology committees in partnership with the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC).

    Dr. Anderson trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and also practiced at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. He received his MD with honors from Harvard Medical School, and a BA in Social Anthropology, cum laude from Harvard College. Currently he lives in the greater Boston area, with his wife and 3 children.

     

     

  • Bouwmeester, Carla

    Carla Bouwmeester, PharmD, RPh, BCPS, BCGP, FASCP, Clinical Professor in Pharmacy and Health Systems Science at Northeastern University Bouvé College of Health Sciences; Clinical Pharmacist at Harbor Health Elder Service Plan PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly)

    About: Clinical Professor at Northeastern University with a clinical pharmacy practice site at the Harbor Health Elder Service Plan which is a PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) model of care in the greater Boston area. PACE provides home care services to older adults who are nursing home eligible but prefer to live in their own homes or other community settings. Services are provided by an interdisciplinary team consisting of a care coordinator, primary care provider (physician/nurse practitioner), home care nurses, physical and occupational therapists, social workers, pharmacists, dietitians, and others. Clinical pharmacy services include anticoagulation management, comprehensive medication reviews, deprescribing, medication and disease state education, formulary management, Medicare Part D oversight, fall prevention, transitions of care, medication incident reporting and prevention, and educational in-service programs.

     

     

  • Cohen, Glenn

    Glenn Cohen, JD, Faculty Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics at Harvard University Law School;  a2 Collective External Advisory Panel Member

    About: Prof. Cohen is one of the world’s leading experts on the intersection of bioethics (sometimes also called “medical ethics”) and the law, as well as health law. He has advised the U.S. Vice President on reproductive rights, discussed medical AI policy with members of the U.S. and Korean Congresses, and lectured to legal, medical, and industry conferences around the world.

    He is the author or co-author of more than 200 articles and chapters and his award-winning work has appeared in leading legal (including the Stanford, and Harvard Law Reviews), medical (including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA), bioethics (including the American Journal of Bioethics, the Hastings Center Report), scientific (Science, Cell) and public health (the American Journal of Public Health) journals, as well as Op-Eds in venues such as the New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic.He is the author or co-author of more than 200 articles and is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than 20 books.

    His work spans many topics including medical AI, mobile health, abortion, reproduction/reproductive technology, the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs, research ethics, organ transplantation, rationing, health policy, FDA law, and medical tourism.

     

  • Das, Sudeshna

    Sudeshna Das, PhD, Director of the Mass General Hospital’s BioMedical Informatics Core and Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Data Core Lead for the Massachusetts Alzheimer Disease Research Center (MADRC); Lead of the MassAITC AD/ADRD Pilot Core

    About: Sudeshna Das, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS). Her lab develops and applies computational, statistical, and AI methods to “big data”—from molecular omics to electronic health data—to advance research and clinical care. Her research centers around advancing brain research, with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Dr. Das leads the Data Core of the Mass. Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (MADRC) and the ADRD Pilot Core of the Massachusetts AI and Technology Center (MassAITC) for connected care in aging and Alzheimer’s disease. She serves on the National ADRC Clinical Task Force Technology subcommittee, as an associate editor of two neurology journals, and as ad hoc reviewer for 25+ journals spanning neuroscience and data science.

     

     

  • Hughes, Mike

    Mike Hughes, PhD, Assistant Professor, Computer Science at Tufts University

    About: Michael C. Hughes (“Mike”) is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Tufts University, where he does research in statistical machine learning and its applications to healthcare. His goal is to develop predictive and explanatory models that find useful structure in large, messy datasets and help people make decisions in the face of uncertainty. His research interests include Bayesian hierarchical models for sequences and images; optimization algorithms for approximate inference; and learning from limited labeled data. Active projects include helping clinicians automatically diagnose cardiovascular disease from ultrasound images of the heart, assessing risk of stroke and dementia from neuroimages, and predicting risk of mortality from time-varying vital signs and laboratory results available in electronic health records.

    Visit his website for links to recent papers, open-access datasets, and open-source code.

    Previously, from 2016-2018 he was a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), advised by Prof. Finale Doshi-Velez. He completed a Ph.D. in the Department of Computer Science at Brown University in 2016, advised by Prof. Erik Sudderth.

     

     

  • Keohane, Susann

    Susann Keohane, PhD, Head of Emerging AI Product Innovation at IBM; a2 Collective External Advisory Panel Member

    About: Susann Keohane is the IBM Watson Health Innovation Leader for Healthy Aging and Longevity and Emerging AI Product. Born in Fort Myers, she received her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida and has since become an expert in enabling human ability through emerging technologies with a strategic focus on accessibility research, aging-in-place Internet of Things (IoT) technology, and cognitive systems to deliver personalized insights and adaptive interfaces.

    In her current role at IBM, she leads the Go-To-Market strategy and launch of new AI product, leveraging her AI/ML and IoT technical knowledge and experience in health research for the global aging population. Previously she headed a worldwide community of researchers, technologists, and academics who help governments, industries, and companies as they seek to develop solutions and technology-enabled services for consumers in the new ‘longevity economy.’ Harnessing her research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Healthy Aging and IoT Sensor Systems for Eldercare, Keohane also applies advanced analytics and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to model personal activities of daily living and generate new insights that reduce risk, reduce cost of care, and significantly improve quality of life for the elderly.

    Keohane has been instrumental in rallying the world-wide teams, building strong partnerships with anchor clients, and establishing the IBM UCSD Center for Healthy Aging. She founded the IBM Aging-in-Place Research Lab which is designed to demonstrate IBM’s IoT-based AI solutions to support aging and create an environment to co-develop solutions with clients. She also served as a principal investigator for IBM’s collaboration with Rice University on cognitive sensor systems which led to the development of the IBM Multi-purpose Eldercare Robot Assistant (IBM MERA), a first-of-a-kind Watson-enabled robot prototype designed to assist the elderly and their caregivers.

    She is an international speaker who has presented at the BBC World Changing Ideas Summit, MIT Future Innovators Forum, IBM World of Watson, and SXSW Interactive. She is an IBM Master Inventor and a member of the prestigious IBM Academy of Technology.

     

     

  • Lee, Chaiwoo

    Chaiwoo Lee, PhD, Research Scientist, MIT AgeLab; a2 Collective External Advisory Panel Member

    About: Chaiwoo Lee is a Research Scientist at the MIT AgeLab, a research program dedicated to inventing new ideas and creatively translating technologies into practical solutions that improve the quality of life of older adults and those who care for them. She also teaches courses on human-centered design and interface design at Tufts University’s Human Factors Engineering program.

    Chaiwoo’s research focuses on understanding acceptance and use of technologies across generations, and looks into people’s perceptions, attitudes and experiences with new devices and services. Across different application domains – including home technologies, vehicle automation, social robots and more – her research seeks to deeply understand user behaviors and decisions, to discuss issues around societal impacts, and to find implications for human-centered design of future products and services.

    Through research projects and other professional services, Chaiwoo has worked with companies and organizations in a variety of industries including consumer electronics, financial services, healthcare, transportation services and automotive manufacturing, insurance and more. Her studies and perspectives have been presented in academic journals and conferences, as well as through popular outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and Bloomberg Businessweek.

    Chaiwoo received her Ph.D. in Engineering Systems from MIT, and her M.S. and B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Seoul National University.

     

     

  • Pak, Hon

    Hon Pak, MD, MBA, Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Health Team, Samsung Electronics;  a2 Collective External Advisory Panel Member

    About: A seasoned corporate physician executive with more than 25 years of healthcare strategic leadership in health information technology across both public and private sector. Dr. Pak is a change agent and has a proven track record in steering sustainable, profitable rapid growth and value creation in small and large organizations through his vision and team based leadership. He is a problem solver and has also led several innovative healthcare companies/organizations through many operational and strategic transformations. He has also served as president and board of directors for several public and private organizations and is internationally recognized for his expertise in telemedicine, healthcare and healthcare IT. Over the last 12 years, he has performed in numerous senior leadership roles providing strategic business development and capture support in both commercial and federal healthcare sector.

    • As a General Manager responsible for a $120M P&L, he transformed and led a newly designed capture and a solutions group while managing the largest portfolio (healthcare) for one of the fastest growing IT services company in the federal health IT sector.
    • As CEO, he led a transformation into the mobile health sector, which resulted in a successful M&A transaction to IMS Health Global. He has held executive positions (CIO, CMIO, CMO, and CEO) in both small and large organizations.
    • An entrepreneur, subject matter expert, and innovator in mobile health, telehealth, and health IT who has demonstrated leadership abilities in both federal and commercial sector. He also has significant clinical research experience and is an author of numerous chapters/books/ articles and is on an editorial board for a telemedicine journal.

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hon-pak-8b18111a/

     

     

  • Zhavoronkov, Alex

    Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Chairman of the Board, Executive and CEO at Insilico Medicine; a2 Collective External Advisory Panel Member

    About: Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, a leading clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation generative artificial intelligence and robotics platforms for drug discovery. Since 2014, he has invented critical technologies in the field of generative artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning (RL) for the generation of novel molecular structures with the desired properties and the generation of synthetic biological and patient data. Under his leadership, Insilico raised over $400 million in multiple rounds from expert biotechnology, healthcare, and financial investors, opened R&D centers in 6 countries and regions, and partnered with multiple pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic institutions. Since 2021, the company nominated more than 20 preclinical candidates, started 6 human clinical trials, and entered Phase II with an AI-discovered novel target and AI-designed novel molecule.

    Since 2012, he has published over 200 peer-reviewed research papers and 3 books. He serves on the advisory or editorial boards of Trends in Molecular Medicine, Aging Research Reviews, Aging, and Frontiers in Genetics, and founded and co-chairs the Annual Aging Research and Drug Discovery (11th Annual in 2024). He is the adjunct professor of artificial intelligence at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

     

     

Moderators

  • Abadir, Peter

    Peter Abadir, MD, Associate Professor of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at John Hopkins University School of Medicine; Co-PI at JH AITC

    About: Dr. Peter Abadir is the 2021 Salisbury Family CIM/HAP Scholar. He is an Associate Professor of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with a joint appointment in the School of Engineering. His area of clinical expertise is geriatric medicine. Dr. Abadir’s research interests include changes in the renin angiotensin aldosterone system with aging, and the development of new technologies that will improve the health and well-being of older adults. He has been recognized by the Hopkins Department of Medicine with the W. Leigh Thompson Excellence in Research Award, and is the co-director of the new Gerotech Incubator Program.

    Dr. Abadir serves as Co-Principal Investigator for JH AITC.

     

     

  • Choudhry, Niteesh

    Niteesh Choudhry, MD, PhD, Center Director for the Massachusetts AI and Technology Center for Connected Care in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease and Professor, Harvard Medical School; Executive director for the Center for Healthcare Delivery Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital

    About: Niteesh K. Choudhry, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Executive Director for the Center for Healthcare Delivery Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he also a practicing hospitalist. He is also Director of Implementation Research and Education and Associate Director for Postgraduate Education in Clinical and Translational Science for Harvard Catalyst.

    Much of Dr. Choudhry’s research deals with design and evaluation of novel strategies to increase the use of evidence-based therapies for common conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. He is particularly interested in changing patient and provider behavior and his work draws inspiration from a broad range of fields including clinical medicine, economics, cognitive psychology, epidemiology and biostatistics. His largest ongoing projects seek to combine approaches from behavioral science and machine learning in order to develop scalable solutions for health quality improvement. He and his research team are funded by a variety of public and private sources including the National Institutes of Health, health insurers, pharmaceutical manufactures and private foundations.

    Dr. Choudhry attended McGill University, received his M.D. and completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto and then served as Chief Medical Resident for the Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals. He earned his Ph.D. in Health Policy from Harvard University with a concentration in Statistics and the Evaluative Sciences. His research has been widely published in leading medical and policy journals and has won numerous awards for excellence in research, teaching and mentorship.

     

     

  • Demiris, George

    George Demiris, PhD, Mary Alice Bennett University Professor in the School of Nursing and Perelman School of Medicine, and Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the School of Nursing at University of Pennsylvania; Co-PI at PennAITech

    About: Dr. Demiris is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Mary Alice Bennett University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with joint faculty appointments in Penn Nursing’s Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences and the Perelman School of Medicine’s Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics. Dr. Demiris’s research focuses on the use of information technology to support older adults and their family caregivers and explore innovative solutions to promote independent aging and patient and family engagement. He is a co-founder of the Hospice Caregiver Research Network, an initiative led by researchers from various academic disciplines committed to designing and testing interventions to support family caregivers of patients at the end of life. Another area of his research includes the use of behavioral sensing, smart home, and Internet of Things technologies to promote independence for community-dwelling older adults and their families. He leads the Penn Col laboratory for Community Co-Creation (Penn4C).

    Dr. Demiris serves as Co-Principal Investigator for PennAITech.

     

     

  • Ganesan, Deepak

    Deepak Ganesan, PhD, Professor of Computer Science, Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; co-Director of MassAITC

    About: Deepak Ganesan is a Professor and Manning Fellow in the Department of Computer Science at UMass Amherst, and co-Director of the Massachusetts AI and Technology Center for Connected Care in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease. He also served as the Director of the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring at UMass Amherst (CPHM) from 2019-2024, and led its efforts towards end-to-end design of new health sensors from prototyping and fabrication to mobile health (mHealth) applications. He also served as the Sensors-to-Information Thrust Lead for the Mobile Data to Knowledge (MD2K) center funded by NIH (MD2K).He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 2004 and his bachelors in Computer Science from IIT, Madras in 1998. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2006, the IBM Faculty Award in 2008, and the UC3M-Santander Chair of Excellence in 2019. He was selected as a UMass Junior Faculty Fellow in 2008, and a UMass Lilly Teaching Fellow in 2009. He has served as Program co-chair for ACM Mobicom 2024, MobiSys 2017, ACM SenSys 2010 and IEEE SECON 2013. His work has been recognized by ACM SIGMOBILE and ACM Research Highlights, a Test of Time Award at SenSys 2022, and Best Paper Award Nominations or Awards at various top conferences in computer science including ACM MobiSys, Mobicom, CHI, Ubicomp and IEEE SECON. He is an ACM Fellow.

     

     

  • Marlin, Benjamin

    Benjamin Marlin, PhD, Center Associate Director for the Massachusetts AI and Technology Center for Connected Care in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease and Professor, Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst

    About: Benjamin M. Marlin is a full professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he leads the Laboratory for Robust and Efficient Machine Learn-ing. His research focuses on the development of probabilistic and deep learning models for time series and sequential data with a focus on robustness to uncertainty and data scarcity. His applied work is in the areas of clinical and mobile health data analytics and the Internet of Things. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the US Army Research Lab, and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. Marlin is an NSF Career Award recipient and has led machine learning research for the NIH-funded MD2K Center and mDOT Center. He currently serves as Associate Director for the NIH-funded Massachusetts AI and Technology Center for Connected Care in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease (MassAITC). Marlin completed his PhD in machine learning at the University of Toronto and his postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia.

     

     

Funders and Dealmakers

  • Brigham, Kate

    Kate Brigham, Angel Investor at TBD Angels; Investor at AgeTech Investor Network; Product Leadership Advisor and Fractional CPO at Kate Brigham Consulting; Mentor at MITdesignX

    About: An experienced product leader and team builder, Kate has deep, hands-on experience in product strategy, user experience design, community development and user research as VP of Product at Instinct Science, Notarize, and ezCater. She also spent 10 years at PatientsLikeMe, where she was Senior Director of Design and responsible for fundamentally changing the structure, processes and tools used by the UX team to improve the member experience in visible, measurable ways. She holds a B.A. from Boston University and a M.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

     

     

     

  • Brzezenski, John

    John Brzezenski, MBA, Partner at MEDA Ventures; Partner at J. Locke & Company

    About: Mr. Brzezenski has a broad-based strategic marketing background spanning operating/executive management, advisory and private equity roles, helping numerous companies develop and execute successful growth strategies. Mr. Brzezenski has developed perspective from “all sides of the table,” having been a Partner with a Strategy/Mergers and Acquisition advisory firm, senior operating executive, and member of the investment committee of a venture capital firm.

    Mr. Brzezenski’s experience has spanned all stages of a company lifecycle and all aspects of business planning, strategy development, business development, marketing strategy/execution and acquisitions/financing. Industry experience includes many areas within the high-technology industry (enterprise software, communications equipment and services, semiconductor applications), medical and health-related products/services, chemicals and other process industries. Mr. Brzezenski started his career in the energy industry with Arthur D. Little, focused on natural gas, power generation and alternative energy markets and technologies. Mr. Brzezenski has also recently served as President of a Food Products company on behalf of a private investment group.

    Mr. Brzezenski competed in two Division 1 college sports (football and track, NCAA provisional qualifier), and has morphed into an avid runner (9 marathons, 150+ races) and health/wellness enthusiast. He was recently Chair of the Library Trustees in his town and is serving, or has served, on multiple nonprofit and for-profit boards, including the Board of the Launchpad Venture Group.

    Mr. Brzezenski graduated with honors from Harvard University with an AB in Economics, and holds an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.

     

     

     

  • Cho-Fertikh, Elizabeth

    Elizabeth Cho-Fertikh, PhD, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Meda Ventures

    About: Dr. Elizabeth Cho-Fertikh is a scientist-turned-angel investor. She is Cofounder of MEDA Angels, a healthcare-focused angel investor group, that has invested in health SaaS, digital health and medical device companies. As an operator at MedTech startups, she also has experience on the “other side of the table”, bringing a full circle understanding of what it takes to advance a company forward. She enjoys mentoring startups, serving as an advisor at multiple healthcare incubators & accelerators. Her passion for making educational-med tech solutions widely accessible to support adolescent mental well-being comes from knowing first-hand the needs of this population, as a parent to a teenage daughter.

    She earned a BA in English from Johns Hopkins University, an MS in Physiology & Biophysics from Georgetown University and a PhD in Developmental Biology from Thomas Jefferson University.

     

     

     

  • Chu, Jeff

    Jeff Chu, PhD, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Features Capital;
    Entrepreneur in Residence at Roux Institute, Northeastern University;
    Entrepreneur in Residence, Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth

    About: Jeff Chu is a Co-Founder and serves as a Managing Partner at Features Capital. He is a seasoned medical device developer and technologist. He is directly responsible for the creation and development of nascent technologies from ideation through transfer to manufacturing for early-stage and global medical device companies. Over 21 years as CTO and Partner of Simbex, he delivered multiple products to market based on a wide spectrum of technologies in both the medical device and consumer marketplaces, from bench to bedside. His deep experience in software, hardware, and algorithm development coupled with his biomechanical systems expertise helps realize innovative solutions that seamlessly integrate with the consumer. He has served as Principal Investigator on several federally funded research innovation programs from both the NIH and the Department of Defense in the areas of rehabilitation, blast, and impact biomechanics. He has been an active angel and LP investor. He is a Corporator of Mascoma Bank, a Founding Steering Committee Member of the MedTech Collaborative, and a Core Director for the Translational Rehab Engineering Advances and the New England Pediatric Device Consortium. His work has received national recognition from Time Magazine, Sybase, Edison Awards, and Computerworlds. Before Simbex, he worked as an advanced concepts consultant for several companies in the sporting goods industry and taught graduate courses in the areas of clinical biomechanics and computer modeling. He holds 8 patents, with 6 patents pending. He received his BS and MS in Biomechanics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

     

     

     

  • Doscher, Jim

    Jim Doscher, CEO at Digital Health Advisors; Angel Investor at Beacon Angels

    About: Jim believes digital health will revolutionize patient experiences and outcomes, while reducing cost. He is a seasoned executive, innovator, and technologist, my mission is to transform the way healthcare is delivered. He brings rich and diverse experience to the table: expertise in sensors and wearable technology, a track record of commercializing new technologies, deep knowledge of physiology and disease states, and forte in navigating the complicated healthcare ecosystem. He spent 26 years at Analog Devices, where he led internal start-ups and transformed struggling businesses. 

     He is particularly passionate about the promise of closed loop chronic disease management and point of care diagnostics. Improving care and reducing cost of the most complex chronic diseases will require applying the ‘right’ remote monitoring of patients to provide the information needed to enable real time interventions. Jim has a A.B. degree in engineering from Dartmouth.

     

     

     

  • Hong, Winn

    Winn Hong, MBA, MS, North America Venture Manager at Nokia Ventures; Cofounder, President, and CEO at Mesencyte Inc.

    About: Mr Hong was the Deputy Executive Director at the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering, at the University of Southern California (USC-AMI). He has over 18 years of experience in high-tech product development and high-tech start-up successes and leadership. Prior to  USC-AMI, Winn was a senior technology strategist for the Institute for Technology Advancement (ITA) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) focusing on biotechnology, alternative fuel, medical device, and internet, media, and related software technologies.

    Winn began his career as a researcher at the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1996 to 1999 where he was involved in the design, fabrication, and testing of sensors for military, medical, commercial, and space exploration applications.

    Mr Hong was the COO of Sega.com, Inc. and Sega.com, Ltd. (publicly traded on the HKSE) and has been involved in company formation, funding, and management. Since then, companies include alternative fuel, green chemicals, medical devices, and material sciences and held various executive level positions in each of these companies.

    From June 2005 to December 2007, Winn worked as a principal for Convergent Ventures, LLC, a venture capital firm that invests seed capital, management, and operational participation in early-stage life science and technology investment opportunities in Southern California.

    Mr Hong obtained a MBA degree from the University of Chicago in 2005. He also received a MS in Mechanical Engineering and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from UCLA in 1996 and 1993, respectively. Winn is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

     

     

     

  • Hueston, James

    James Hueston, Senior Associate, Primetime Partners

    About: James joined the Primetime team in 2022 and was previously an investor at NTTVC, the single LP fund formed in partnership with NTT. At NTTVC, James spent two years focused on early-stage digital health and B2B enterprise investments. He was also previously on the CEO’s advisory board at Cinemark Movie Theaters where he focused on implementing programs to further engage audiences of all ages. He received his undergraduate degree in Economics with minors in Mathematics and Physics from Vassar College while also playing DIII varsity lacrosse.

     

     

     

  • MacIntosh, Alan

    Alan MacIntosh, Founding Partner, AgeTech Capital; Founder, AgeTech Investor Network

    About: Alan has been building, operating and investing in businesses at the intersection of wireless and the internet since the 1990s. After cofounding a number of notable venture funds including GSM Capital and Acta Wireless, he joined with John and JS to cofound Real Ventures in 2007, which is Canada’s most active venture fund with more than 100 investments in mobile and web tech start-ups. In 2022, he cofounded AgeTech Capital, a Montreal based venture capital firm focused on funding innovative solutions and affordable technology that empower older adults to flourish in North America. A dedicated mentor, Alan sees himself as a demanding yet empathetic coach: helping on important issues, highlighting strategic opportunities, and looking for possibilities for his portfolio companies to exit. He works primarily with startups using emerging software technologies (mobile, digital media, deep learning, preventative healthcare), and is also interested in creating new markets with connected devices. A native of Scotland, Alan is a keen cyclist and lifelong skier, and is also committed to improving the quality of life in the community, through his work as President of the OSMO Foundation and as a board director of the McCord Museum, the Quartier de l’Innovation (QI) and the Mobile Giving Foundation Canada.

     

     

     

  • Saltojanes, Denise

    Denise Saltojanes, MBA, Managing Director, Golden Seeds; Business Coach, SBA T.H.R.I.V.E.; Investor, NuFund Venture Group; Investor, Beacon Angels

    About: Denise Saltojanes is managing director and deal flow lead with Golden Seeds-Boston and an early stage investor with NuFund Venture Group. With a broad background in medical and technology development and financial analysis, she holds a multifaceted skill set from her engineering-based finance career of 25-plus years. As ops research chief with the U.S. Air Force, Saltojanes successfully modeled and defended $6 billion of congressionally approved appropriations and was responsible for numerous financial agreements regarding technology transactions with America’s foreign allies. While working as vice president of investment banking at Medical Capital Advisors, she was an integral part of the firm’s merger and acquisition team and led the valuation process. As a member of the founding team for Cambridge Polymer Group, she led marketing, financial strategy, new business development and licensing agreements. Saltojanes has a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of New Hampshire and an MBA in finance from Babson College.

     

     

     

  • Werth, Ted

    Ted Werth, MBA, Angel Investor at Launchpad Venture Group; Executive in Residence at Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University; Mentor at MassChallenge

    About: Ted brings a wealth of innovative experience to Northeastern. As a serial entrepreneur, CEO and board member, he has an extensive background in leading and growing businesses such as PlumChoice, a leading national remote services company. As a mentor, he has worked with over 40 companies spanning IOT, digital health, and services industries, through mentoring services at MIT, BU and Northeastern. He worked for the MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) as part of their entrepreneurial ecosystem, matching ventures with mentors. As an investor, Ted has been active in area investment groups through Launchpad and Hub Angels.

    Prior to his position at NEU Ted served as an adjunct professor for Questrom School of Business at Boston University, teaching Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship to engineers.

    Ted received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University, and an MBA from Northeastern University.