Artificial Intelligence - Programming our Future!
Speaker Information
David Forsyth, PhD, MA, MSc
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
David Forsyth is a South African computer scientist and full professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, born in South Africa. He is married to Margaret Fleck, who is also a professor at the University of Illinois, and has three children. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and an MA and D.Phil from Oxford University. He was a full professor at U.C. Berkeley before moving to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He co-authored, with UIUC CS Professor Jean Ponce, 2002's "Computer Vision: A Modern Approach", one of the leading publications addressing the topic. He has published over 100 papers on computer vision, computer graphics and machine learning. He served as program co-chair for IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in 2000, general co-chair for IEEE CVPR 2006, program co-chair for ECCV 2008, program co-chair for IEEE CVPR 2011, general co-chair for IEEE CVPR 2015, and is a regular member of the program committee of all major international conferences on computer vision. He served on the NRC Committee on "Protecting Kids from Pornography and other Inappropriate Material on the Internet", which sat for three years and produced a study widely praised for its sensible content. He has received best paper awards at the International Conference on Computer Vision and at the European Conference on Computer Vision. David Forsyth's research interest also includes graphics and machine learning; he served as a committee member of ICML 2008. In 2013, he became a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Jennifer Neville, MS, PhD
Miller Family Term Associate Professor of Computer Science
Associate Professor of Statistics, Purdue University
Professor Neville's research focuses on data mining and machine learning techniques for relational data. In relational domains such as social network analysis, citation analysis, epidemiology, fraud detection, and web analytics, there is often limited information about any one entity in isolation, instead it is the connections among entities that are of crucial importance to pattern discovery. Relational data mining techniques move beyond the conventional analysis of entities in isolation to analyze networks of interconnected entities, exploiting the connections among entities to improve both descriptive and predictive models. Professor Neville's research interests lie in the development and analysis of relational learning algorithms and the application of those algorithms to real-world tasks.
David Cappelleri, MS, PhD
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
David J. Cappelleri is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Prior to joining Purdue, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. Prof. Cappelleri founded the Multi-Scale Robotics & Automation Lab that performs cutting-edge research on robotic and automation systems at various length scales: macro-scale (cm to m), meso-scale (~100’s of um to a few mm’s), micro-scale (10’s of um to 100’s of um), and nano-scale (nm). Prof. Cappelleri is a recipient of the Villanova University Engineering Alumni Society John J. Gallen Memorial Award (2013), National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2012), Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor Teaching Award (2010) and the Association for Lab Automation (ALA) Young Scientist Award (2009). He was selected for and participated in the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers on Engineering Education Symposium in 2011 and the German-American Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in 2015 that was jointly sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the National Academy of Engineering. Prof. Cappelleri is an elected member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Technical Committee on Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation, the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Mechanisms and Design, the ASME Design Engineering Division Mechanisms & Robotics Committee, and the ASME Design Engineering Division Micro/Nano-Systems Technical Committee. He is also an associate editor for the Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics (JMBR) and the IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters (RA-L) . Prof. Cappelleri received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University, and The Pennsylvania State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics.
Jeffrey Siskind, PhD, SM
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University
Jeffrey M. Siskind received the B.A. degree in computer science from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, in 1979, the S.M. degree in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Cambridge, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from M.I.T. in 1992. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science from 1992 to 1993. He was an assistant professor at the University of Toronto Department of Computer Science from 1993 to 1995, a senior lecturer at the Technion Department of Electrical Engineering in 1996, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Vermont Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from 1996 to 1997, and a research scientist at NEC Research Institute, Inc. from 1997 to 2001. He joined the Purdue University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2002 where he is currently an associate professor. His research interests include computer vision, robotics, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive science, computational linguistics, child language acquisition, automatic differentiation, and programming languages and compilers.
Miles Brundage, BS
PhD Student, Arizona State University
Miles Brundage studies the impact of science and technology from a multidisciplinary perspective. Of primary interest is the ways in which scientific research and technology development can have a positive impact on human and social needs. He is a contributor to ASU’s Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR), a project aimed at understanding how broader social and ethical considerations can be incorporated into the process of scientific research. “I’m also investigating various aspects of solar energy, including how solar development is affected by public policy and how the non-hardware (“soft”) costs of solar energy can be reduced,” he says. Faster adoption of sustainable energy technologies is possible, he believes, when people understand the implications of science and technology for society and how citizens can constructively engage in building a desirable future. With a bachelor’s degree in political science from George Washington University, his goal at ASU is to become an expert in the social and policy aspects of science and technology, and in solar energy in particular, to help bring about a sustainable future through work in academia, the private sector and non-profits.
Sharlissa Moore, PhD
Assistant Professor, Michigan State University
Sharlissa is an Assistant Professor of International Energy Policy jointly appointed between James Madison College and the College of Engineering at Michigan State University. Her teaching and research interests focus on the social, policy, equity, and security dimensions of energy systems, particularly those that cross nation-state borders and are undergoing dramatic change. Sharlissa is writing a book on sustainable development and the Desertec vision, a plan to build solar and wind power plants in North Africa and to link the electricity grid around the Mediterranean region to provide for a 90% renewable energy future for the region. She studied this plan from a regional perspective, from the perspective of the national government in Morocco, and from the perspective of citizens living in desert landscapes in Morocco. Sharlissa is developing research collaborations in the College of Engineering to study the social and governance aspects of emerging energy technologies. She began her career studying astronomy and physics at Smith College and, since then, has continued to work with engineers and scientists to understand the social and policy dimensions of technology. For example, she has taught courses on sustainability and macroethics for civil engineering students. She has served as the president of Student Pugwash USA, a nonprofit organization that engages science and engineering students in the societal, ethical, and policy dimensions of science and technology. She has also worked in science and technology policy in Washington, DC at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Science and Technology Policy Institute.
Rachel Svetanoff, MSGH
Vice President, Student Pugwash USA
Rachel Svetanoff is the Vice President for Student Pugwash USA, a student-led nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting social responsibility in science and technology through student engagement. Her current responsibilities include recruiting new student board members, coordinating member engagement activities, and organizing members to participate in communications roles. Before her role as Vice President, Rachel served as a student board member for two years where her primary duties focused on communications and public relations. Her current independent research activities, in collaboration with Dr. Sharlissa Moore, explores perspectives on social responsibility in science and technology as it evolved through the history of Pugwash and Student Pugwash USA to understand the history of the idea of social responsibility as interpreted, understood, and applied by Student Pugwash members. Before her involvement with Student Pugwash USA, Rachel was the President of Purdue Student Pugwash for the 2013-14 academic year and publicity director for the previous year. Rachel received a M.S. in Global Health from the University of Notre Dame and a B.S. in Chemistry/Biochemistry from Purdue University with distinction as a top student leader for her graduating class. She is now returning to Purdue University to obtain an MBA at the Krannert School of Management.
