Amy Pavel is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. In her research, she designs, builds and evaluates AI-powered systems to make communication more effective and accessible. Prior to UT Austin, Amy was a research scientist in the AI/ML and Accessibility group at Apple and a postdoc in the Human–Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Find out more about Amy’s research at https://amypavel.com.

Art Markman is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing, Founding Director of Human Dimensions of Organizations and Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. He has written over 150 research papers on topics including reasoning, decision making and motivation. He brings insights from cognitive science to a broader audience through his blogs at Psychology Today and Fast Company as well as his radio show/podcast “Two Guys on Your Head.” He is the author of several books including “Smart Thinking,” “Smart Change,” “Brain Briefs” and “Bring Your Brain to Work.”

Arya Farahi is the director of D3 Lab, focused on advancing knowledge and innovation in statistical sciences, astronomy and decision-making. He is also a working group lead of the CosmicAI Institute. His research focuses on trustworthy and explainable AI in uncertain settings. Before joining UT, he was a Data Science Fellow at the University of Michigan and a McWilliams Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. He completed his Ph.D. in physics and scientific computing at the University of Michigan.

Ashley Jennings is the managing director of the Texas Innovation Center, a technology commercialization venture studio that helps researchers across campus navigate the process of translating their work into companies for the global market.

Prior to academia, Jennings helped co-found Texas’ first diversity-focused technology accelerator. She started her career in network news in New York, where she earned five Emmy nominations along with a Peabody Award and two Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Bob Duke is the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor in Music and Human Learning and director of the Center for Music Learning at UT Austin. His research on human learning and behavior spans multiple disciplines, including the refinement of procedural memories and teacher-learner interactions. His books include “Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction,” “The Habits of Musicianship” (co-authored with Jim Byo), and “Brain Briefs,” which he co-authored with Art Markman, his co-host on KUT’s “Two Guys on Your Head” radio show and podcast.

Brian Lukoff is Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management at the McCombs School of Business. Outside of UT, he is co-founder and CTO of Perusall, a technology platform that creates social connections inside of course content. He holds a Ph.D. from the Stanford University School of Education and an M.S. in statistics from Stanford

Carol Fletcher is Director of EPIC (Expanding Pathways in Computing) at UT Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) where she oversees research and professional development projects in STEM and CS education, such as the nationally recognized WeTeach_CS program. She is primary investigator for two NSF projects focused on broadening participation in computing (BPC), the Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance and Accelerating Women’s Success and Mastery in CS (AWSM in CS). Carol is a former middle school teacher and an elected Pflugerville ISD School Board Trustee from 2001 to 2019.

Casey went to Purdue University for undergrad and is now a 5th year Ph.D. candidate in computational science, engineering and mathematics at the Oden Institute. Her research focuses on using mechanism-based modeling to make interpretable predictions of breast cancer response to therapy.

Charlee Garden, an associate professor of practice in the CNS Inventors Program, brings over 30 years of experience in tech transformation, entrepreneurship and leadership. She began her career as a computer scientist at Bell Labs and later founded multiple ventures, culminating in her role as Chief Culture, Brand and Innovation Officer at a $100M+ revenue SaaS company. Grateful for her mentors, Charlee is passionate about empowering students to create meaningful inventions and drive impactful change.

Chelsea McCullough (Collier) is a Ph.D. student in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research centers on urban co-creation and socio-technical systems. She is a graduate research assistant (GRA) for the Smart Hand Tool Project for Good Systems (an interdisciplinary core research program) with a research focus on ethical AI and skilled trade workers. She is also an NSF Research Traineeship Fellow in Ethical AI. Chelsea returns to UT Austin following a career in the private sector which includes founding Digi.City, a forum for social impact and smart(er) cities and serving as the Editor-At-Large for Smart Cities Connect. She is a University of Manchester (UK) Fellow (2019), a Marshall Memorial Fellow (2018) and an Eisenhower Fellow (2016). Her previous experience in government, economic development, social enterprise and tech entrepreneurship informs her cross-sector approach. Her graduate and undergraduate degrees are from the College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin.

Chun Kuo helps manage intellectual property generated by UT faculty, staff and students and helps inventors shape their discoveries into technologies that address a market need. 

Daniel Culotta is the City of Austin’s Chief Innovation Officer. The Innovation Office focuses on research, design, data, partnerships and collaborative consultative services that help Austin create new solutions for complex challenges such as homelessness, displacement, emerging technologies and green workforce development. Daniel leads the talented Innovation Office team in taking an equitable, human-centered approach to civic innovation, and drives an organization-wide innovation culture that improves outcomes for all Austinites.
 
Prior to joining the City of Austin, Daniel created the first comprehensive sustainability and environmental program for the City of Avondale, AZ, and co-founded a startup that helped design and speed adoption of innovative sustainable products and services. Daniel graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s in anthropology and business administration, and worked in environmental consulting before earning a master’s in sustainability science from Arizona State University.

David Paydarfar, M.D., is a professor and the inaugural chair of the Department of Neurology at Dell Medical School. He practices general neurology and is a fellow of the American Neurological Association. Paydarfar’s clinical research program seeks to develop novel biosensors, signal-processing algorithms and user interfaces that will enable clinicians and researchers to track and predict the health of individual patients as well as entire populations.

David Yeager is a professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin and the cofounder of the Texas Behavioral Science and Policy Institute. He is best known for his research conducted with Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth and Greg Walton on short but powerful interventions that influence adolescent behaviors such as motivation, engagement, healthy eating, bullying, stress, mental health and more. He has consulted for Google, Microsoft, Disney and the World Bank, as well as for the White House and the governments in California, Texas and Norway. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and more. Clarivate Web of Science ranks Yeager as one of the top 0.1% most-influential psychologists in the world over the past decade. Yeager earned his Ph.D. and M.A. at Stanford University and his B.A. and M.Ed. at the University of Notre Dame.

Edward Castillo, Ph.D., is an associate professor of biomedical engineering at UT Austin. Dr. Castillo’s research program is focused on the theoretical development, implementation and clinical application of numerical methods for medical image analysis. In collaboration with medical physicists, he has pioneered computational methods for inferring patient-specific functional tissue properties from dynamic medical imaging.

Edwin Marty is the Food Policy Manager with the City of Austin’s Office of Sustainability. He helped develop the Austin Travis County Food Plan and is currently supporting its implementation.

Elizabeth C. Tyler-Kabara, M.D., Ph.D., is a board-certified pediatric neurosurgeon. She specializes in functional neurosurgery and minimally invasive skull base surgery and pioneered the use of expanded endonasal surgery of the skull base in extremely young children, providing them with a minimally invasive alternative for the treatment of a variety of conditions. Tyler-Kabara’s research efforts are focused on the use of brain-computer interfaces.

Erica Braverman is the UX research lead at Larunda Inc. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in teaching from Wayne State University, and a Certificate in User Experience Research and Design from the University of California San Diego. Her UX research career has focused on the online experiences of participants with disabilities, and she is a passionate advocate for accessible research environments.

Erin Reilly is Professor of Practice and Founding Director of Texas Immersive Institute in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. She consults with companies in the areas of experience design, audience engagement, and creative strategy. She has been a guest lecturer worldwide at universities and industry conferences such as SXSW and serves on advisory boards, such as Disney Junior and PBS children's programming, Hero Elementary and Emmy-award winning Sci Girls. Erin was a founding member of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab and before that, she was Research Director for Project New Media Literacies at MIT. 

Heather Meeker is a Founding Portfolio Partner at OSS Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund specializing in commercial open source development. At Tech Law Partners LLP, Meeker advises technology clients on intellectual property matters, including licensing and collaboration arrangements, software copyright and patent issues, technology procurement, open source licensing strategies, and intellectual property issues in investments, mergers and acquisitions. She is an internationally known specialist in open source software licensing. Her latest book, Open Source for Business, is a definitive handbook for lawyers, engineers, and businesspersons on open source licensing in business. Her Technology Licensing: A Primer, is a widely used handbook for technology licensing specialists. In 2019, Meeker was named by Business Insider as one of the ten people transforming the way the technology industry does business, along with the CEOs of Salesforce, Stripe, and Microsoft. She was the only lawyer on this list.

J.D. Thomas is the Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Education at UT Dallas. He leads student success and academic transition initiatives, collaborating with faculty and staff to enhance the new student experience and encourage greater campus and community involvement. Thomas also coordinates the university’s student-taught Freshman Seminars, training student leaders to be effective course instructors while contributing to broader conversations about the role of GenAI in teaching and learning.

Jack Virostko, Ph.D., performs quantitative biomedical imaging in both preclinical and clinical studies. He has experience with MRI, nuclear imaging and optical imaging and performing both technological development and application — primarily in the fields of oncology, diabetes and metabolism.

Jag Bath is an investor, board member, and company advisor. He is the former CEO, President & Chairman of Favor and former Chief Digital Officer of H-E-B. Under his leadership, Favor expanded to over 400 cities in less than five years and became the first on-demand delivery company to achieve profitability. In 2018, Jag led the sale of the company to H-E-B, making Favor the first business to be acquired by H-E-B in its now 117-year history. Prior to H-E-B, Jag had a 20-year track record of scaling startups from early stage to successful exit. He also held executive leadership roles at RetailMeNot, Gilt and Weight Watchers. Jag holds a bachelor’s degree in business information technology from Bournemouth University, England.

James Howison is interim Associate Dean for Research for the Information School of The University of Texas at Austin, where he has been since August 2011. James studies open collaboration, particularly in software development, including open source software development and the development of software in science. CV and publications can be found at http://james.howison.name.

Jaxsen Day studies the areas of accessibility, education, and technology. Specifically, his work explores the issue of access to higher education for people with disabilities. This issue is heavily influenced by several factors including but not limited to: previous educational experience in the k-12 environment, access and exposure to technology in general (as well as assistive technology specifically), the understanding of human values around disability and universal usability, as well as the understanding and use of support services for people with disabilities (both in general as well as in an educational context).

Jennifer Porter is the executive director of OnRamps and brings more than 20 years of professional experience in the education sector. Since joining OnRamps in 2015, Jennifer has innovated the professional learning and professional development offerings for high school educators across the state and nation, as well as led the development and implementation of OnRamps courses through collaboration with faculty at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining OnRamps, Jennifer served as Assistant Superintendent of Learning and Leadership at Little Elm ISD and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Academic Services at Comal ISD. In these roles, she was responsible for leadership of curriculum, instruction, assessment and technology to ensure that district goals and objectives were met and realized with fidelity to serve students. She has also held numerous teaching positions at Dallas ISD, from kindergarten through eighth grade. Jennifer earned a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from UT Austin and a master’s degree in developmental psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University.

John Neumann currently teaches Digital Accessibility in the UT Austin School of Information. In addition, he leads the iSchool’s Capstone Program where he works with approximately 200 students per year in connecting them with sponsored projects and leaders. John’s published work stems from his work with the U.S. Army Research Institute. On the industry front, Neumann has worked with both startups and technology firms including Dell, IBM, Visa and the Cigna Group.

José del R. Millán, Ph.D., holds the Linda Steen Norris & Lee Norris Endowed Chair in Neuroengineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and is a professor in the Department of Neurology. Millán has made several seminal contributions to the field of brain-machine interfaces, especially based on electroencephalogram signals. Most of his achievements revolve around the design of brain-controlled robots.

Josh Recio works with mathematics education systems to help develop, design, implement, and improve policies, procedures, content and other structures that enable students to successfully access and succeed in high-quality mathematics courses that are aligned to their aspirations. Josh’s leadership in the Dana Center’s Launch Years Initiative, which seeks to usher in a new paradigm to support students for college preparation and guide them through pathways for degree attainment, specifically focuses on the transition from high school to postsecondary education.

Josh Taylor received his Ph.D. in statistics and researches unsupervised machine learning and its application to the astronomy domain.

Julie Schell is the Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Technology and the Director of the Office of Academic Technology. She works to advance teaching and learning through the strategic use of academic technology. She is also an assistant professor of practice in the Departments of Design and Educational Leadership and Policy. In her current studios, Schell and her students are partnering with generative AI to prototype objects and environments designed to improve teaching and learning.

Junfeng Jiao is an associate professor in the Community and Regional Planning Program at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the founding director of the Urban Information Lab, director of Texas Smart Cities, director of the UT Ethical AI program and a founding member of UT Austin’s Good Systems Grand Challenge.

Jiao’s research focuses on Smart Cities, Urban Informatics and Ethical/Generative AI. He uses different information technologies to quantify urban infrastructures and their influences on people’s behaviors. He first coined the term “transit deserts” and measured it in all U.S. cities. Using different machine learning methods, Jiao investigated and quantified the spatial-temporal patterns of various shared mobility activities (Uber, Scooter and Bike Sharing) in major U.S. cities. Currently, he is leading three smart city projects: NSF: CIVIC Challenge Community Hub for Smart Mobility (Smart Hub); NSF NRT: AI-Convergent, Responsible, Ethical, Applied Training Experience for Roboticists (Ethical AI); and A Good System for Smart City. He is also a Co-PI for the USDOT-funded Center for Climate-Smart Transportation at Johns Hopkins University and a Co-PI for the USHUD-funded Equitable Technologies for Housing Innovation Center at UT Austin.

Teaming with colleagues at the University of Houston, Jiao has expanded his Smart City research to the Houston area. As a Co-PI, he received NSF funding to combat the Food Deserts problems with AI technology. The project title is “NSF Convergence Accelerator Track J: Artificial-Intelligence-Based Decision Support for Equitable Food and Nutrition Security in the Houston Area.”

Jiao has published over 110 peer-reviewed articles and two books on Shared Mobility and Smart Cities, respectively. His research has been reported on in major media outlets such as ABC, Associated Press, CNN, Fox, NBC, NPR, New York Times, SXSW and Wired. As a PI or Co-PI, Jiao has raised over $25 million in funding from different sources such as NSF, USDOT, USHUD, UT, Microsoft, MITRE and Google.

Keri K. Stephens is a social scientist with extensive experience as a principal investigator or Co-PI on 12 NSF and 14 State Grants. Her NSF-funded research has provided insights into machine learning and AI in human-AI teaming and disaster contexts. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles, co-leads a Good Systems project and is a Fellow in the International Communication Association. Stephens uses her interdisciplinary background to make complex risk topics understandable and actionable for diverse audiences.

Kevin J. Bozic, M.D., MBA, is the chair of surgery and perioperative care at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. He is an internationally recognized leader in orthopaedic surgery and value-based health care payment and delivery models.

Kristin Patterson has a Ph.D. in zoology from The University of Texas at Austin and NIH-supported postdoctoral research experience in genetics. She has 18 years of experience in STEM higher education as a classroom and laboratory instructor, leading a college-wide curriculum redesign initiative, and directing the Office of STEM Education Excellence, which acts as an innovation hub through teaching assessment, instructor professional development and support for improvement projects. This year, she organized the College of Natural Science’s efforts to build AI literacy and discover productive uses of AI technologies in teaching and learning.

Luis Sentis is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a General Dynamics Endowed Faculty Fellow, and Chair of UT Austin’s Good Systems.

In Austin, Sentis leads the Human Centered Robotics Laboratory, a laboratory focusing on control, task and motion planning, human factors and experimentation with humanoid robots, mobile manipulation robots, exoskeletons and autonomous systems. He is also a founding member of the UT Robotics Portfolio Program and the UT Ethics of AI Portfolio Program. He was the UT Austin Lead for DARPA’s Robotics Challenge with NASA Johnson Space Center where he helped to design and test the Valkyrie humanoid robot. His research has been funded by ONR, NASA, NSF, ARL, AFC, DARPA and private companies. He has been awarded the NASA Elite Team Award for his contributions to NASA’s Johnson Space Center Software Robotics and Simulation Division. Sentis is also a founding member and innovation advisor for Apptronik Systems, a company focusing on human-centered robotic products.

Sentis received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He was a La Caixa Foundation Fellow while at Stanford. He holds a B.S. degree in telecommunications and electronics engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Before Stanford, he worked in Silicon Valley as a Control Systems Engineer for clean room automation.

Matthew Lease’s research integrates artificial intelligence (AI) and human-computer interaction (HCI) techniques across the fields of crowdsourcing and human computation (HCOMP), information retrieval (IR) and natural language processing (NLP). Lease is a faculty founder and leader of UT Austin’s Good Systems, an eight-year, university-wide “moonshot” Grand Challenge to design responsible AI technologies. As part of Good Systems, Lease is leading a six-year, seven-member faculty project developing explainable AI techniques to curb disinformation. He is also co-director of the new NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins, CosmicAI.

Lease is the recipient of three Early Career awards: from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS). Recent research awards include Best Student Paper at the 2022 Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST), Best Student Paper at the 2019 European Conference for Information Retrieval (ECIR) and Best Paper at the 2016 AAAI Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP) conference. Lease received degrees in computer science from Brown University (Ph.D., M.Sc.) and the University of Washington (B.Sc.).

Max Weiner serves as the Texas Baseball pitching coach. Prior to UT Austin, Weiner served as the Texas A&M pitching coach, helping to lead them to their best-ever NCAA runner-up finish and 53 total wins, which tied for the second-most in program history. Weiner made the move to Texas A&M from the Seattle Mariners where he has served as the organization’s pitching coordinator from December of 2018 until July of 2023.  Weiner was named to the “35 Under 35” list by The Athletic, which spotlighted 35 exceptional people under the age of 35 shaping baseball in 2019. Most recently he was named to the “30 Under 30 2023” list by Forbes Magazine in December of 2022, highlighting those under the age of 30 who are blazing new trails in the sports world. He also founded The Arm Farm at the age of 19, an online platform for pitching development and charity serving youth and amateur baseball players that is still active today. Weiner played two seasons at Lake Sumter State College before transferring to FIU in his hometown of Miami. There he completed his bachelor’s degree in sociology in 2017.

Michael Baker is an experienced professional and educator focused on the convergence of real-time technology, mixed reality, and immersive media, which is powering new forms of storytelling, education, and business models. A 20-year veteran of the game industry, he has worked on projects large and small, including indie games, big licensed projects based on Star Wars and Alien, and software tools for the popular Bullet Physics Framework, which powers countless authoring tools, feature films, and games. Michael is a graduate of the Imaging and Digital Art program at the University of Maryland.

Michael Drew is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. In this role, he oversees academic programs, student support services, curriculum development and student advising, all of which aim to promote the success of student learning in science and math disciplines. Michael is also a professor of neuroscience, where he researches the brain’s mechanisms underlying memory, emotion and anxiety. His research aims to deepen the understanding of how experiences reshape brain function and influence behavior. Michael earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Columbia University.

Mick McQuaid teaches UX and data science courses at the UT Austin School of Information. He also conducts research in accessibility with a particular focus on disabled graduate students in compute-intensive disciplines and has published at CHI, CSCW, ASSETS and other venues.

Mohit Tiwari holds the Raytheon Company Faculty Fellowship in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. His current research focuses on building secure systems, all the way from hardware to system software to applications that run on them. Tiwari received a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara and was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley.

Omar Ghattas is a professor of mechanical engineering and holds the Pratt Chair in Engineering at UT Austin. He also directs the OPTIMUS (OPTimization, Inverse problems, Machine learning and Uncertainty for complex Systems) Center in the Oden Institute. Prior to 2005, he spent 16 years on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University. He holds B.S.E. (civil engineering) and M.S. and Ph.D. (computational mechanics) degrees from Duke University. He is a two-time Gordon Bell Prize winner and a Fellow of SIAM. 

Patrick Benfield has been a maker educator for two decades and is passionate about lowering barriers to creative spaces and innovative tools. Before joining the UT College of Natural Sciences team, he was a co-founder of Co.Lab Community Makers, a non-profit fabrication lab for innovators, artists and designers from underrepresented communities. He also was the founding director of three K-12 educational makerspaces and has been a mentor for the UTeach Maker micro-credentialing program since 2016. 

Patrick Heimbach is a computational oceanographer and W. A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr., chair. His research focuses on ocean and ice dynamics and their role in the climate system. He is an expert in the use of inverse modeling and data science methods. Before joining UT Austin, Patrick spent 17 years at MIT, where he led differentiable programming approaches applied to ocean climate modeling. He earned his Ph.D. from the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology and the University of Hamburg, Germany.

Peter Stone is the founder and director of the Learning Agents Research Group (LARG) within the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, as well as associate department chair and Director of Texas Robotics. He was a co-founder of Cogitai, Inc. and is now Chief Scientist of Sony AI.

Stone’s main research interest in AI is understanding how to best create complete intelligent agents. He considers adaptation, interaction and embodiment to be essential capabilities of such agents, so focuses mainly on machine learning, multiagent systems and robotics. For Stone, the most exciting research topics are those inspired by challenging real-world problems. He believes that complete successful research includes both precise, novel algorithms and fully implemented and rigorously evaluated applications. Stone’s application domains have included robot soccer, autonomous bidding agents, autonomous vehicles and human-interactive agents.

Rebecca McInroy is an award-winning public media show creator, host and executive producer with a long history at KUT Public Radio in Austin. Rebecca believes it is important that public media directly connects with the community it serves, so the shows and podcasts she creates, produces and hosts help to link the general public to ideas, innovations, conversations and intellectual and artistic communities around the globe. These programs have included Two Guys on Your Head, The Secret Ingredient, The Write-Up and Views and Brews.

S. Craig Watkins, Ph.D., is the Ernest A. Sharpe Centennial Professor and the executive director of the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on the technical, social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence, exploring the challenges — and opportunities — we face in deploying AI in high-stakes contexts like health care.

S. Scott Graham is an associate professor in the Department of Rhetoric & Writing and the Associate Director for A.I. Science & Culture at the Humanities Institute. He uses AI to study communication in bioscience and health policy. Graham is the author of “The Doctor & The Algorithm,” published with Oxford University Press, and his scholarship has been covered in The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Science, Health Day, AI in Health Care and the Scientific Inquirer.

Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a nonprofit educational organization that offers free lessons in math, science and humanities, as well as tools for parents, teachers and districts to track student progress. Khan Academy is piloting an AI guide called Khanmigo that is a tutor and teaching assistant. Worldwide, Khan Academy has more than 160 million registered users in 190 countries, with free lessons available in more than 50 languages.

Shruti is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin developing novel methods to simulate cardiac mechanics with high speed and accuracy for clinical applications. She has received two best presentation awards at national and international level for this work. Prior to UT, Shruti worked as a CAE Engineer and simulated vehicle crashes at Tesla Inc. She obtained her M.S. from Penn State and bachelor’s degree from IIT Bombay, India.

Sophia Baker is a creative technologist based in Austin, TX. She recently graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, earning a master’s degree in interactive telecommunications. Her focus was on interactive video sculpture and online world building, utilizing game engines as her primary creative software. Currently, Sophia is the Technology and Media Associate at the Texas Immersive Institute where she is developing and exploring the potential of generative AI characters.

Sophia earned her B.A. from Claremont McKenna College, where she studied applied mathematics and neuroscience, focusing on computational models of neural dysfunction. Her interests center on how data and mathematical models can provide new insights into healthcare, particularly in areas like signal processing, optimizing stimulus waveforms and modeling neural systems. Sophia’s work explores the potential of physiologically-driven digital twin models to improve understanding of neural processes.

Stella Offner is a computational astrophysicist and expert in scientific machine learning. Offner’s research explores how stars form by combining computer models, telescope observations and statistical techniques. A core focus of her work aims to develop methods to effectively use artificial intelligence to analyze astronomy data and predict properties that cannot be directly observed. She is Director of the NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins (CosmicAI).

Thorsten holds the Shell Foundation Distinguished Chair in Geophysics at the Jackson School of Geosciences and is a faculty associate of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences at UT Austin. His main research interests are in geodynamics and seismology, focusing on how planets’ interior and surface systems have co-evolved. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and recipient of IUGG’s Evgueni Burov Medal and the European Geoscience Union’s Augustus Love Medal.

Thushani Herath is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Chemistry. She earned her PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Wayne State University, MI. Since joining the University of Texas in 2016, she has developed and taught multiple Analytical Chemistry lab courses. In 2020, she received the President's Award for Global Learning. Thushani is also a recipient of a Pathway grant, supporting her collaborative work on vertically aligning lab skills across chemistry/bio-chemistry curricula.

Tim Riedel has a diverse background, receiving undergraduate degrees in physics and astronomy and a master’s degree in molecular biology from The University of Texas at Austin. Tim then earned a Ph.D. in earth sciences at USC and completed a postdoc study at UCLA before joining UT Austin again. Tim joined the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) program in 2013 and guides freshman in creating diagnostic technologies. He started the Inventors Program in 2018 and the new CNS Maker Space was originally established through his lab.

Tom Yankeelov received an M.A. in applied mathematics and an M.S. in physics from Indiana University, before completing a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at SUNY @ Stony Brook. He completed his post-doc at the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science and climbed the ranks to Full Professor in 2010. He then joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin in 2016 where he is now the Moncrief Chair of Computational Oncology and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Diagnostic Medicine and Oncology.

Yankeelov is the founding Director of the Center for Computational Oncology, and also serves as co-Director for the Quantitative Oncology Research Program and Director of Cancer Imaging Research within the Livestrong Cancer Institutes at UT Austin. He is also an adjunct professor of imaging physics at MD Anderson Cancer Center. The overall goal of Yankeelov’s research is to develop tumor forecasting methods by integrating advanced imaging technologies with predictive models of tumor growth to optimize therapy on a patient-specific basis.

Ying Ding is the Bill & Lewis Suit Professor in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin. She co-chairs the AI in Health Lab at the School of Information and Dell Medical School with the goal to build human-centered AI approaches to deliver better health. She has published 330+ papers, chaired 40+ workshops and served as a program committee member for 240+ international conferences.

Yuke Zhu is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at UT Austin and the director of the Robot Perception and Learning (RPL) Lab. He is also a senior research scientist at NVIDIA Research, where he co-leads the Generalist Embodied Agent Research group. Zhu’s goal is to build algorithms and systems for autonomous robots and embodied agents that reason about and interact with the real world, with research that intersects with robotics, machine learning and computer vision.