2025 Speakers

Dr. Matthew Elmore is the AI Ethics & Evaluation Specialist at Duke Health, where he works in the emerging field of AI governance. As part of a growing team within the AI Evaluation & Governance Program, his research supports institutional learning on the human side of AI in healthcare—particularly as it affects clinicians and patients. Soon after stepping into this role, he helped lead a national consensus-building effort for the newly formed Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), which produced the Responsible AI Guide, a framework translating ethical principles into practical guidance for AI developers and health systems.

A Catholic ethicist by training, Dr. Elmore earned his doctorate from Duke Divinity School. He has taught ethics and bioethics in both undergraduate and graduate settings and often speaks on Catholic perspectives in the wider field of AI ethics. Before entering academia, he trained as an EMT and cared for patients in the emergency department and burn unit of his hometown hospital in Michigan. He later moved into clinical research, partnering with a cardiologist on robotic innovations for heart procedures.

Rooted in the humanities, he brings a deep commitment to strengthening human agency and moral awareness in highly technical environments. His current research explores automation bias through the lens of virtue ethics, examining how clinician character traits shape and are shaped by AI-driven decision making. His forthcoming book asks what it means for humans to have a soul in the age of AI.

Dr the Honorable Christopher Tufton, Member of Parliament for West Central St. Catherine since March 2016, is Jamaica’s Minister of Health and Wellness. Prior to this He was previously the Minister of Industry, Investment & Commerce (June 2011-December 2011) and Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries (November 2008 – June 2011). He is the author of a political memoir, State of Mind: Politics, Uncertainty, and the Search for the Jamaican Dream (Ian Randle Publishers, 2019), that has been received to wide acclaim in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora in the United States.

Dr. Tufton is a business strategist whose expertise includes International Business & Marketing Strategy, specializing in foreign direct investment facilitation and the impact of public policy on industry. He has lectured and conducted business consultancy in Jamaica, the United Kingdom and the USA, in a number of areas including International Marketing, Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship.

A graduate of the University of the West Indies and Georgia State University he received degrees in Management Studies and Marketing respectively. He completed his Doctorate in Business Administration at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester in the United Kingdom in 2002.

Bita Alu is a global healthcare leader with over 30 years of experience in strategy, innovation, and transformation. As Vice President for General Imaging, Point of Care, and Women’s Health at Philips Ultrasound, she is dedicated to advancing access to care through cutting-edge healthcare technology. With a career spanning five countries, Alu brings an international perspective to healthcare challenges, always focusing on the intersection of technology and the human experience. She is passionate about shaping the future of healthcare to deliver more equitable, efficient, and patient-centered solutions around the world.

Anupam Agarwal, M.D., serves as the senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. A distinguished physician-scientist and academic leader, Agarwal is also a professor of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Molecular Genetics in the Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, and program director of the NIH-funded UAB-UC San Diego O’Brien Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research. He holds the James C. Lee Jr. Endowed Chair.

Agarwal’s career spans decades of clinical excellence, groundbreaking research, and transformative leadership in Nephrology and academic medicine. He has held numerous leadership roles at UAB, including director of the Division of Nephrology and executive vice dean of the Heersink School of Medicine, through which he has been instrumental in shaping institutional strategy, research infrastructure, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Agarwal’s research focuses on acute kidney injury and the cellular mechanisms of injury, particularly the role of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). His laboratory has made seminal contributions to understanding HO-1’s transcriptional regulation, its anti-apoptotic and autophagic functions, and its role in iron homeostasis and lymphangiogenesis. He has received continuous NIH funding for over two decades and has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, review articles, and book chapters. His work has earned him election to prestigious societies such as the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and Alpha Omega Alpha, and he has served as president of the American Society of Nephrology.

A committed mentor and educator, Agarwal has trained dozens of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in academic medicine. He has received numerous accolades for his mentorship and leadership, including the UAB Graduate Dean’s Excellence in Mentorship Award, Mentor of the Year award from the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Reaching for Excellence Outstanding Leadership Award.

Beyond his professional achievements, Agarwal is an advocate for global health and interdisciplinary innovation, and he actively contributes to institutional governance and national advisory panels. His dedication to advancing kidney health and academic medicine continues to shape the future of biomedical research and education. In 2025, he was among a select group of leaders to participate in the Joint Associations Group (JAG) on Indirect Costs’ Subject Matter Expert Team, representing 10 different national organizations including the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). JAG has proposed a new model (Financial Accountability in Research, FAIR) to fund actual costs for research that universities and other organizations incur when conducting federally funded research.

Agarwal earned his medical degree from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore University, India. He completed an Internal Medicine residency and a Nephrology fellowship at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, before completing Nephrology fellowships at the University of Minnesota Hospital and the University of Florida College of Medicine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology.

Dr. Sonia Anand is a distinguished physician-scientist and global health leader whose work has transformed Canada’s approach to cardiovascular health, health equity, and Indigenous and population health research. She serves as Associate Vice-President of Global Health and Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at McMaster University, and holds Canada Research and Heart & Stroke Chairs recognizing her national impact.

Dr. Anand’s research has revealed how sex, ethnicity, and social determinants influence cardiometabolic risk—shifting practice away from “one-size-fits-all” models toward equity-focused care. Her studies have set new standards for defining obesity, created validated ethnic-specific risk scoring systems, and led to the development and testing of community-based interventions in South Asian and Indigenous populations.

She has published over 500 peer-reviewed papers, led large-scale cohort studies (e.g., SHARE, PURE, CAHHM) and clinical trials (e.g., COMPASS, WAVE, SAHARA), and forged research partnerships with Indigenous communities grounded in ethical co-design. As a vascular medicine specialist, she also delivers care at Hamilton Health Sciences and mentors future clinician-scientists through Canada’s only Vascular Medicine Fellowship.

Dr. Anand’s scholarship and leadership have been recognized by her election to both the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2019) and the Royal Society of Canada (2022). She currently serves on the national board of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and leads McMaster’s new School of Global Health and Social Medicine—a platform for interdisciplinary solutions to health inequities in Canada and around the world.

Professor Rashid Ansumana is Dean, College of Medical Sciences, Njala University, Sierra Leone, and a distinguished researcher in global health with a focus on infectious diseases, including One Health. He is the PI for the West African One Health Consortium, which is a regional initiative under which academic and public health institutions from Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone collaborate to enhance surveillance, research, and policy responses on emerging zoonotic diseases.

Ansumana has a wide breadth of experience in viral hemorrhagic fevers, malaria, sepsis, and health security. Prof. Ansumana has led several groundbreaking research projects supported by effective collaborations with organizations such as the Gates Foundation, Africa CDC, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and IDRC, both at the national and international level. His research bridges clinical studies, field epidemiology, and the use of artificial intelligence in disease modeling and surveillance.

A proponent of interdisciplinary learning, he has led curriculum reform in medical, public health, nursing, and laboratory education throughout West Africa. He is the Founding Editor of the West African Journal of One Health and Epidemiology (WAJOHE), a peer-reviewed journal committed to building African scientific leadership and knowledge translation.

Professor Ansumana has written multiple influential articles for impact-factor journals; serves on regional and international scientific advisory boards; and is deeply interested in the application of data science and AI in tackling health inequities within low-resource settings. His leadership underpins research, training, and policy directions for the development of resilient health systems in Africa and beyond.

Dr. Mohd Anwar is an NIH Data and Technology Advancement (DATA) National Service Scholar and a professor of computer science at North Carolina A&T State University. He is an interdisciplinary computer scientist with training in human-centered artificial intelligence (AI). His research employs computational methods for secure acquisition of data from cyber and cyber-physical systems as well as for building predictive data analytics models. At NIBIB, he explores how wearable device data from different sources can be aggregated and analyzed to draw meaningful scientific insights, risk stratification, or prediction of disease or health outcomes.  

Rebekah Butterfield is the Epidemiology Lead for the Pathogen Project at the Ellison Institute for Technology in Oxford. There, she works across partnerships and within the institute to define and scope pathogen sequencing needs globally and inform the development of metagenomic bioinformatic pipelines for rapid pathogen analysis. She has worked as a Field Epidemiologist in Richmond, Virginia, where she investigated respiratory disease outbreaks and hospital acquired infections and most recently for Oracle Health as a Principal Scientist in Health Surveillance, where she led partnered efforts to support population health and infectious disease interventions. Rebekah received her Master’s in Public Health from the University of West Florida and is currently completing her Doctorate of Public Health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Farouk Dako is an Associate Professor of Radiology and the Founding Director of the Center for Global and Population Health Research in Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Director of the Botswana-UPenn Partnership and is primarily based in Botswana. He is a senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, a scholar in the Center for Global Health, and a full member of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. His research is focused on the utilization of data-informed strategies to improve health outcomes, particularly for traditionally underserved populations. He has extensive experience in capacity building initiatives in data science and medical AI. Dr. Dako attended medical school at St. George’s University. He obtained a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He completed a surgical internship at the Mayo Clinic and diagnostic radiology residency at Temple University Hospital. He then completed fellowships in cardiothoracic radiology and imaging informatics at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Dr. Dako is the Nigeria Program Director and on the Board of Directors of RAD-AID International, the premier Radiology NGO in North America.

Aakash Desai, MD, MPH, FASCO is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of the Phase 1 & Precision Oncology Program at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham. A thoracic oncologist and clinical trialist, his work bridges drug development, biomarker science, and AI-enabled trial operations. He leads OPTIMATCH (AI clinical-trial matching) and TRACE-AI (AI-assisted response assessment), initiatives deployed to accelerate early-phase research and expand equitable access across Alabama

Stevan Fairburn is a current fourth year medical student concurrently pursuing a masters in AI in Medicine through the Marnix E. Heersink Institute for Biomedical Innovation. He is pursuing a career in general surgery and eventually trauma surgery with an interest in studying the intersection of AI and surgical support systems. He is also a member of the United States Air Force with interest in leveraging AI for operational surgical support in austere environments.

Shena Gazaway, PhD, RN, is currently a faculty member in the School of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As a registered nurse working within the community, her practice experience sparked her research interest in supporting upstream decision-making for seriously ill patients and their families, particularly those residing in built environments that limit access to specialty palliative care services. In addition, her work centers on the belief that individuals living with serious illness are the best navigators of their illness experience, and interventions must incorporate local knowledge, beliefs, and practices for long-term success. Specifically, her research is focused on developing and optimizing community-informed decision-support interventions for individuals living with advanced chronic kidney disease and their caregivers. However, she also disseminates community-engaged science that applies community-engaged research principles in multiple areas of palliative science. Shena is currently funded or has received funding from the National, Foundation, and Internal mechanisms. Related to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Shena is a growing user and contemplates the ethical integration of AI into research processes and protocols, and how to teach its use in PhD curricula. 

Liz Gibbons holds an appointment of Preceptor at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, where she participates in FXB initiatives which leverage her expertise in advancing the human rights of children and adolescents. Previously, as FXB Director of the Child Protection Certificate Program, she led development of the cross-disciplinary child protection curriculum for Harvard graduate students, an online HarvardX course and the Executive Education course for child protection professionals. In recent years, she has explored artificial intelligence and its impact on human rights, with particular attention to the potential for these technologies to affect inequality within and between global societies.

Prior to her academic appointment to Harvard’s FXB Center, Liz enjoyed a lengthy career in international development, primarily with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), during which she lived and worked in Togo, Kenya and Zimbabwe, and served as head of UNICEF’s offices in Haiti and in Guatemala in addition to several HQ postings, including Chief of Global Policy. A graduate of Smith College and Columbia University, Ms. Gibbons is fluent in French and Spanish, and the author of Sanctions in Haiti: Human Rights and Democracy under Assault, as well as a contributing author to several other books.

Dr. Renee Heffron is a clinical epidemiologist and HIV prevention researcher with experience that incorporates implementation science, clinical trials, behavioral science, and qualitative research. She leads numerous research projects focused on biomedical HIV prevention using pre-exposure prophylaxis including studies of novel products and optimizing delivery of efficacious products with close collaborations in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa. She is the Director of the Center for AIDS Research at UAB, a center with a 35-year history of supporting HIV research across disciplines of basic, clinical, implementation, and community sciences. Throughout her career, she has been a mentor to dozens of trainees, including doctoral students, fellows, and early career investigators at US and African institutions.

Chris Hickman is an instructor and co-chair of the AI Advisory Group at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing. As the founder and CEO of Blueline Insights, LLC, Chris specializes in data analytics and artificial intelligence, helping organizations make better decisions through actionable insights. With two decades of experience in AI strategy, informatics, and education, Chris is passionate about driving practical innovation and preparing the next generation of nurse leaders for a data-driven future.

Dr. Johnston specializes in pediatric neurosurgery. His practice includes all aspects of patient care related to neurological surgery, including neurosurgical oncology (brain and spine tumors), complex spinal surgery, craniosynostosis, vascular neurosurgery (including revascularization for moyamoya), radiosurgery, neurocritical care and trauma, and congenital disorders.

Dr. Johnston is an active researcher and is currently the co-investigator at Children’s in a trial of intratumoral viral therapy for the treatment of recurrent malignant brain tumors in children. He is also working with colleagues on the development and FDA-approval of a rapid complement-based diagnostic device for bacterial meningitis and shunt infection.

Dr. Johnston received his M.D. degree from Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis in 2002. He completed an internship in General Surgery at Washington University in 2003 and residency in the Washington University Department of Neurosurgery from 2003-2006. He pursued post-doctoral training in functional and diffusion tensor MR imaging at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology Neuro-Imaging Laboratories from 2006-2008. During this time, he also served as neurosurgical registrar at the National Referral Centre for Neurosurgery, Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, Ireland from July to December 2007. He was then named Chief Resident in Neurosurgery at Washington University/Barnes Hospital from 2008-2009 and went on to complete fellowship training in pediatric neurosurgery at Saint Louis Children’s Hospital in 2010.

Dr. Suzanne Judd is the Director of the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy and a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. After 6 years in the consumer products industry with the Kimberly-Clark Corporation working as a chemical engineer, she received her Ph.D. in Nutrition Sciences from Emory University. Dr. Judd is a multiple PI on both the REGARDS and RURAL cohort studies, which are large NIH-funded epidemiological cohort studies seeking to understand disparities in chronic disease in the United States. Her experience in the US provided a platform to collaborate with European cohort studies in France through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Dr. Judd’s research focuses on the role of diet and the environment as mediators of racial disparities in the risk of hypertension, kidney disease, and stroke. Her unique combination of training in engineering, epidemiology, and nutrition, as well as industrial experience, has provided a solid foundation to guide her research, mentorship, collaboration, and public health communication.

Dr. Manasyan is a perinatal researcher with over 15 years of experience leading multi-national global health projects in sub-Saharan Africa, managing cross-functional and multi-national teams, and providing strategic direction in government and nonprofit environments. He has been living and working in Zambia full-time since 2008, where he founded and currently heads the Department of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (RMNCH) at the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). He holds a dual appointment – Associate Professor with the Division of Neonatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Director of the Department of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health at CIDRZ. Throughout his career, he has undertaken studies in safe motherhood (maternal postpartum depression, vertical transmission of STIs, postpartum hemorrhage), newborn health (adverse delivery outcomes, neonatal hypothermia, apnea of prematurity, postnatal growth restrictions), and cervical cancer (validation of screening tools, longitudinal evaluation of HPV, barriers to uptake).

Dr. Ryan L. Melvin is the Endowed Faculty Scholar for Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning and an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His multidisciplinary publication record spans Artificial Intelligence, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Statistics. Dr. Melvin has delivered numerous trainings, lectures, and seminars on AI across the globe. His innovative algorithms are actively utilized by academic, private, and governmental institutions. Dr. Melvin holds a Ph.D. in Physics and a Master’s in Statistics from Wake Forest University. His work has been highlighted in an Intel Spotlight video and featured in journals such as BJA and PNAS.

Matt Might has been the Director of the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) since 2017. At UAB, Matt is the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute Endowed Chair, a Professor of Internal Medicine and a Professor of Computer Science.

From 2016 to 2018, Matt was a Strategist in the Executive Office of the President in The White House. In 2015, Matt joined the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Harvard Medical School, first as Visiting Professor and since 2017 as Senior Lecturer.

Douglas Morgan, MD, MPH, FACG, AGAF is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). His central research interest is cancer epidemiology and prevention in Hispanic-Latino populations in Latin America and the U.S. The specific focus is gastric adenocarcinoma in the LMIC setting of northern Central America (Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala), and other collaboration sites in Latin America with research in genetic epidemiology, H. pylori, chemoprevention, and appropriate technology. He recently led three U.S. guidelines related to gastric cancer prevention as lead author and co-author (2).

Dr. Morgan completed his graduate training at Case Western Reserve University, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and UC Berkeley, School of Public Health. Dr. Morgan has held faculty appointments at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and Vanderbilt University. He served as a Peace Corps engineer in Central America prior to medical school. In 2011, Dr. Morgan received the Ohtli Award from the government of Mexico, their highest award to a foreign national, for the formation of the UNC Center of Latino Health (CELAH) in service of foreign-born individuals from Mesoamerica. In 2023, he received the International Leadership Award from the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG).

Carolyn Bolton Moore is a South African trained physician, employed by the University of Alabama in Birmingham, who has been living and working in Zambia since 2004. Her expertise is in paediatric and adolescent care and treatment, and prevention of mother to child transmission interventions. She has been combining paediatric and adolescent research and implementation science within the Zambian public health system for over 20 years. As Chief Medical Officer, she provides support for a large (over 5,000 adolescent patients) care and treatment program and has experience and expertise in treating adults, adolescents and children. She is a protocol co-chair of IMPAACT P2017, an exciting phase 1/2 clinical trial, the first study to use long acting injectable antiretrovirals in adolescents. She is an MPI on an exciting UG1 looking at improving SRH outcomes amongst adolescent girls and has also served as a Co-Investigator on the Southern African region of the International Epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) network since 2008. Having collaborated with US Institutions for over 20 years, and having lived and worked in Zambia across the spectrum of academia, research and public health, she fully understand the research, training and implementation needs and opportunities in Zambia and the region, and is working to ensure an AIDS free 2030.

Dr. Basile Njei is a physician-scientist and global health leader with specialized expertise in gastroenterology, hepatology, and the application of artificial intelligence to digestive diseases. He currently serves as Co-Director of the Yale International Medicine Program, Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Gastroenterology at Memorial Health System/Ohio University, and Fulbright Visiting Professor of Global Health with the U.S. Department of State.

Dr. Njei earned his medical doctorate with honors from the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon and completed a Master of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh as a British Chevening Scholar. He subsequently pursued residency training in internal medicine at the University of Connecticut, followed by a fellowship in gastroenterology at Yale University, where he also obtained a Ph.D. in Investigative Medicine. Additionally, he is a graduate of the Harvard Global Clinical Scholars Research Training Program.

His research focuses on harnessing large language models and machine learning to enhance the diagnosis and risk stratification of chronic liver diseases, particularly metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is a frequent presenter at major international conferences.

Beyond his academic work, Dr. Njei has provided clinical care to underserved communities across the United States and actively collaborates with institutions in Africa and the Middle East to promote medical education and advance health equity.

Gbenga Ogedegbe, MD, MPHis the inaugural and founding director of the Institute for Excellence in Health Equity (IEHE) at NYU Langone Health. He is the Dr. Adolph & Margaret Berger Professor of Medicine and Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is a leading NIH-funded scientist in health equity research. He has led numerous NIH-funded studies for cardiovascular disease risk reduction with a focus on developing and evaluating clinic-community linkage models of care to address inequities in health outcomes.

Dr. Ogedegbe is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the United States Prevention Services Task Force (USPSTF). He is a Fellow of many scientific organizations including the American Heart Association, American College of Physicians and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine.

Dr. Kelly Resco-Summers, DNP, RN is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Nursing Informatics Pathway at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. With over two decades of experience in informatics and a strong background in clinical operations and leadership, she has led transformative initiatives across academic medical centers, integrated delivery networks, and Fortune 500 technology firms. Her work centers on advancing equitable care, building informatics capacity, and harnessing technology to enhance patient outcomes and clinician experience. Dr. Resco-Summers holds advanced degrees in nursing, administration, and health informatics, and is widely recognized for her leadership in digital health innovation and team development.

Dr Nsala Sanjase is a Research Fellow in the Tuberculosis and Other Respiratory Diseases Department at the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). Her work focuses on infectious diseases particularly Tuberculosis with research interests in applying artificial intelligence to public health and advancing TB prevention, early diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. M. Elizabeth Sobhia is a Professor and the Head of the Department of Pharmacoinformatics at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), S.A.S. Nagar, Punjab, India. She is a distinguished scientist in the field of computational drug discovery with over 25 years of expertise in molecular modeling and rational drug design. Her research interests include lead identification and optimization, ADME/Tox prediction, and the design of peptidomimetics, antibodies, foldamers, and targeted protein degraders for diverse therapeutic targets. In recent years, Dr. Elizabeth has expanded her work into the integration of AI/ML, developing predictive models for the identification of novel molecules using generative AI, repurposing of drugs and medical imaging. Beyond research work, Dr. Elizabeth is deeply committed to academic mentorship, having supervised more than 150 M.S. (Pharm.) students and 15 Ph.D. scholars, many of whom have made impactful contributions in both academia and industry. Her leadership has fostered a vibrant, interdisciplinary research environment, encouraging innovation and collaboration across scientific domains.

Dr. Steinhubl is a career-long clinician-scientist and the Vincent P. Reilly Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University. Prior to returning to Purdue, Dr. Steinhubl was the founding Director of Digital Medicine at Scripps Research’s Translational Institute. He remains clinically active as a cardiologist in both Indiana and Alaska. He received his undergraduate training in chemical engineering at Purdue, medical degree at St. Louis University, and cardiology training at the Cleveland Clinic. His research centers on the implementation science behind digital health technologies in health research and health care, from the development of individualized digital biomarkers made possible by wearable sensors augmented by AI-based analytic insights, and generative AI precision communications to provide personalized, real-time value to individuals. A key emphasis of his research is exploring how digital technologies can address health disparities, especially in low-resource areas. Dr. Steinhubl has been the principal investigator of dozens of U.S.-wide and global clinical trials, has published over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Nature Partner Journal – Digital Medicine.

Jeff Stringer, MD is the Clarke-Pearson Distinguished Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Director of the Division of Global Women’s Health. He received an MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and trained in OBGYN at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Between 2001 and 2012, Stringer lived in Lusaka, Zambia, where he established and led the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). In 2012, he returned to Chapel Hill to lead UNC’s Division of Global Women’s Health. Stringer’s research focuses on improving birth outcomes for women in low-resource settings. He has served as PI for over $280 million in grant and contract funding and currently holds grants from the US NIH and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Jeff and his spouse, Dr. Elizabeth Stringer (also an obstetrician) occupy an empty nest in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Dr. Techagumpuch is a Thai surgeon specializing in minimally invasive, colorectal, bariatric, and endoscopic surgery. Dr. Techagumpuch is an Assistant Professor and Clinical Instructor at Thammasat University, and also directs the Colorectal Surgery Division and the Advanced Endo-Laparoscopic Fellowship Program. Trained in Thailand and at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Techagumpuch holds leadership roles in several national and international surgical societies. Dr. Techagumpuch has received numerous academic awards and has published extensively in surgical research, contributing significantly to innovation and education in her field.

Meike Thijsen received her BSc in Data Science and AI and MSc in AI from Maastricht University (UM). She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Advanced Computing Sciences of UM and conducting research in collaboration with Maastricht University Eye Clinic on the clinical integration of AI in glaucoma care. She has completed her MSc thesis and MSc internship in collaboration with the European Space Agency, and during her BSc she worked together with Psylaris to apply AI to virtual reality-based mental healthcare. Her current research focuses on medical imaging and the use of explainable and human-in-the-loop AI methodologies to support safe and trustworthy decision support systems for adoption in clinical practice.

Dr. Alan T.N. Tita is Professor of OB/GYN, the Mary Heersink Endowed Chair of Global Health, and Director of the Mary Heersink Institute of Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He also serves as the Heersink School of Medicine Senior Associate Dean for Global and Women’s Health. Dr. Tita also directs the university-wide Center for Research in Women’s Health. His background is in Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Perinatal Epidemiology and Global Health. Dr. Tita is dedicated to improving maternal and infant health outcomes and equity worldwide and has leveraged over $100M in funds. He co-led the Cameroon Health Initiative, a multidisciplinary collaboration between UAB and Cameroon partners to improve health. Dr. Tita has consulted for the World Health Organization, NIH (including serving on the NICHD National Advisory Council), the CDC, and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He has co-authored over 400 publications and is an elected member of the National Academies of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians.

Dr. Wallace is a native of Alabama. After completing a clinical fellowship in nephrology, Dr. Wallace joined the faculty at UAB where he became the Medical Director of Telehealth for UAB in January of 2017 given his work on telehealth for home dialysis and rare genetic kidney disease. In 2025, Dr. Wallace became the Chief Medical Information and Digital Health Officer of the UAB Health System. In this role, he strives to use technology to improve access to care, improve quality of care, and ensure that technology enables care without becoming a barrier to care.

Ray L. Watts, M.D., a Birmingham native and graduate of UAB School of Engineering, was named UAB’s seventh president in 2013 and is now the university’s longest-serving president. Dr. Watts has led, with campus- and community-wide collaboration, development of UAB’s most comprehensive-ever strategic plans—Forging the Future (2018-2023) and the current Forging Ahead (2024-2028)—as well as the current Research Strategic Initiative that is helping accelerate the pace of discovery and maximize the impact of UAB research on people’s lives locally and globally.

During Dr. Watts’s decade-plus tenure, UAB has made unprecedented strides in all pillars of its mission, including record enrollment and greater access to higher education for first-generation students; the most successful era of research funding in the university’s history; accelerated commercialization and economic development efforts; advancements in patient care and precision medicine; construction of key new facilities as part of UAB Campus Master Plan that is creating on the most vibrant, state-of-the-art, and sustainable urban campuses in the nation; and strong community partnerships to improve education, health, and quality of life throughout Birmingham, the state of Alabama, and beyond.

Dr. Watts was named 2025 CEO of the Year by Business Alabama and 2021 CEO of the Year by Birmingham Business Journal. In recognition for his significant contributions to the advancement of engineering and technology, he is inducted to the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame’s 2025 Class. He serves on a number of boards, including UAB Health System (chair), Southern Research (chair), Prosper Birmingham, Innovation Depot, Birmingham Business Alliance (serving two consecutive terms as chair, 2016-2017), and the UAB Arts/Alys Stephens Center for the Performing Arts (chair, corporate board).

Dr. Watts earned his medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine and completed a neurology residency, medical internship, and clinical fellowships at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a two-year medical staff research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. Thereafter he joined the faculty at Emory University, where he was part of a team that created an internationally renowned research and clinical center for Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. He returned to UAB in 2003 as the John N. Whitaker Professor and Chair of Neurology, and was named Senior Vice President and Dean of Medicine in 2010. He served as President of the Health Services Foundation (UAB School of Medicine Faculty Practice Plan) for five years before being named dean.

Dr. Watts and his wife Nancy, a retired nurse, have five grown children and 11 grandchildren.

Dr. Ralph Welborn is currently the co-founder of SunasiAI – an AI startup focused on allocating capital & optimizing programs around high-impact capabilities. The previous company was acquired by PwC (private equity practice – 2021). Previous roles included Analytics & Transformation Leader at IBM (Middle East & Africa); Senior Partner, head of Global Solutions & Innovation at KPMG Consulting; CEO turnaround for Private Equity for an analytics company out of London; co-founder, Jericho Partners (Advanced analytics / threat intel). Former security clearance. Extensive global experience, including 2.5 years living in South Africa & Dubai, 9 months in South Korea, and significant experience elsewhere. Dr. Welborn is the author of three books: Topple: The End of Firm-based Strategy and the Rise of New Models of Explosive Growth; the other two on Innovation (Jericho Principle) and Strategic Execution (Get it Done), along with multiple articles on a range of topics. New book (In progress: Algorithmic Strategy)

Dr. Rachel Wells is an Assistant Professor and Core Mixed Methods faculty member at the School of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As a nurse and Clinical Nurse Leader with over 10 years of clinical experience in cardiac critical care, palliative medicine, and rural health, her research bridges the fields of chronic illness care and early palliative care and is focused on refining palliative care access for under-resourced older adults living with serious illness. Specifically, Dr. Wells has focused on the development and testing of highly efficient and effective models of early palliative care for those living with advanced heart failure. Her emerging program of research focuses on the examination of active palliative care intervention elements and dosing of palliative care to develop optimized interventions that uniquely address palliative care needs, a novel approach to addressing health disparities in under-resourced palliative care populations. Dr. Wells is regularly engaged in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association, where she has championed efforts to educate clinicians and others to identify, monitor, and intervene early for cardiovascular challenges in under-resourced populations.

Dr. Willig is a Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases at UT Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Center. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and Clinical Informatics. He served as the Assistant Dean of Clinical Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Heersink School of Medicine, until January 2025 and spent 20 years of his career at UAB. His informatics research has focused on crafting software platforms including the development of many significant software projects at the UAB HIV/AIDS Clinic, including the software to capture real-time patient-reported outcomes in clinic settings, ArthritisPower, a platform for research and PRO data capture at home with over 30,000 users, and Kaizen Education, a gamification platform for learning. As the new Associate Dean of Undergraduate Medical Education at UTSW, he is responsible for the four years of the medical school curriculum. He has recently been focused on exploring AI use within the curriculum.

Dr. Konstantia Zarkogianni received her MEng in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2003), an MSc in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete (2005), and a PhD from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) (2011). In 2017, she became a permanent laboratory teaching staff member at NTUA. In 2023, she was appointed as Associate Professor of Human-Centered AI at the Department of Advanced Computing Sciences, Maastricht University. Her research focuses on biomedical and health informatics, AI-driven decision support systems, and intelligent user interfaces. She has published 19 journal papers, 3 invited editorials, a book chapter, and more than 30 conference papers. She has participated in Greek (ENDORSE, smarty4covid) and EU-funded (MOSAIC, VOXReality) projects. She is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ΙΕΕΕ).