Thematic Session 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.