Presenter: Dr. Amir Amini

Title: Developing Deep Learning Models for Medical Imaging

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

Amir A. Amini is Endowed Chair in Bioimaging and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Louisville. His prior faculty appointments were at Yale and Washington University in St. Louis. He has had leadership roles in organization of numerous conferences in medical imaging and image analysis as scientific program committee member, scientific program chair, as well as conference chair, and was symposium co-chair of SPIE Medical Imaging in 2007 and the IEEE International Symposium in Biomedical Imaging in 2018. He has served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, IEEE Trans. On Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics. He served as Vice President for Publications for the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in 2020-21. He was appointed Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Trans. on Biomedical Engineering as of 2025.

Under funding from the NIH, NSF, private foundations, and industry, his laboratory has conducted research in development and application of MRI methods for motion and flow measurement and is developing biomedical image analysis methods based on Deep Learning applied to a variety of imaging modalities with application to computer aided diagnosis, and radiation therapy of lung cancer. He received the UMASS/Amherst College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award in 2020. He was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2007, to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2017, SPIE, the International Society of Optics and Photonics, in 2018, the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association in 2021, and IAMBE, the international Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2024.

Presenter: Dr. Jonathan Beus

Title: Getting AI to the Bedside

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Medical Director, Children’s Health Informatics Core Collaboration, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
• Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Pediatric Hospital Medicine
• His primary operational and academic interests include secondary use of clinical data for research and quality improvement as well as the application of clinical decision support, working to bring AI to the bedside to prevent patient harm such as line infections and sepsis.
• He also serves as the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta informatics lead for PEDSnet, the 13-member national PCORnet® Clinical Research Network

Presenter: Dr. Maria Fernanda Cabrera

Title: From Innovation to Implementation

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio

• Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Photonic Technology and Bioengineering at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
• Director for the Life Supporting Technologies Research Group (LifeSTech)
• Secretary of the Active Ageing Association
• Treasurer of the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE) and the International Union for Physical and Engineering Science of Medicine (IUPESM)
• She is national expert for the European ACCESSIBLE EU resource centre on accessibility. Dr. Cabrera-Umpierrez works as a coordinator and PI on competitive research projects funded by both the European Union and Spanish institutions.
• Her expertise spans a wide range of applications in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), applied to sectors such as health, social inclusion, and cultural heritage. This includes the personalization of services, human-machine interaction, interaction design, mobility and accessibility.
• Dr. Cabrera-Umpierrez has authored more than 100 scientific articles published in national and international journals.

Presenter: Dr. Vince D. Calhoun

Title: Neuroimaging Analysis

STAR-AI Theme: Trustworthy & Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Founding Director, Tri-Institutional TReNDS Center
• Distinguished University Professor, Georgia Tech / Georgia State / Emory
• Pioneer of group ICA (Independent Component Analysis) on MRI, PET, EEG, and other modalities with multimodal fusion methods
• Recipient, OHBM 2024 Glass Brain Lifetime Achievement Award
• IEEE, AAAS, ISMRM, ACNP, IAMBE, OHBM, AAIA, and AIMBE Fellow
• 1200+ publications; >120,000 citations

Dr. Calhoun advances Trustworthy AI by developing interpretable multimodal neuroimaging methods. His pioneering work in independent component analysis and brain connectivity has reshaped how neuroscience leverages AI, with an emphasis on reproducibility and fairness across diverse populations.

Presenter: Dr. Rosa Chan

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong
• Her research interests include computational neuroscience, neural prosthesis, and human-computer interaction
• She was the co-recipient of the Outstanding Paper Award of IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering in 2013 for research breakthroughs in mathematical modeling for cognitive prosthesis
• She also shared the Gold Medal in Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days (IGED), a virtual edition of the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, in 2021, for a youth sports education and management SaaS platform based on AIoT

Presenter: Dr. Daniel Drane

Title: AI in Clinical Neuroscience

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Professor, Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics, School of Medicine
• Faculty, Children’s Center for Neurosciences Research (CCNR), Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
• Affiliate Professor of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Washington
• Faculty, Emory Epilepsy Center, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine

Presenter: Dr. Hassan Ghasemzadeh

Title: Agentic Intervention Discovery

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Associate Professor, College of Health Solutions, ASU
• Two decades of experience in digital health and AI
• Leadership in interdisciplinary NIH- and NSF-funded projects on the design, development, and deployment of health AI systems
• Member of graduate faculty in biomedical informatics & data science, computer science, computer engineering, and biomedical engineering at ASU
• Recipient of a prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career Research award on wearable-based health monitoring technology
• 10 years of industry experience
• Secured >$14M in external funding

Presenter: Dr. Wayne Liang

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Director of Informatics Education & Outreach; Associate Professor
• Associate Professor, Pediatrics, Emory University
• Dr. Liang is particularly interested in clinical informatics and clinical research informatics for pediatrics, hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplant, as well as biomedical informatics education.
• Board certified in Pediatrics, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, and Clinical Informatics (ABPM), and is a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA).

Presenter: Dr. Denise Lo

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Associate Professor Emory University
• Dr. Denise Lo joined the Emory Liver Transplant team in 2016. She completed her medical education at Northwestern University, General Surgery residency at Georgetown University, and fellowship in Abdominal Transplant Surgery at Emory. Dr. Lo specializes in liver transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery. She is also the Associate Chief Medical Officer at Emory University Hospital. Her primary academic interest is the science of high-quality healthcare delivery.

Presenter: Dr. Bobak Mortazavi

Title: Multimodal Representations and Real-Time Cardiovascular Monitoring

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at Texas A&M University
• His research focuses on systems and analytics for personalized health, emphasizing machine learning methods that enhance clinical outcomes through multimodal modeling and dynamic risk prediction.
• His work has pioneered the integration of machine learning and embedded systems with clinical outcomes research, including clinical risk prediction models and models for individual monitoring through passive sensing in remote, free-living environments.

Presenter: Dr. Naveen Muthu

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Director of Health Informatics Core Innovation Services, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta,
• Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University, Pediatric Hospitalist
• Naveen co-directs AI strategy in Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He has been involved in multiple predictive model implementations and evaluations.
• He also co-directs the Pediatric Clinical Decision Support Collaborative, a consortium of 11 pediatric health systems aiming to leverage CDS to improve quality and safety in pediatric healthcare.

Presenter: Dr. Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi

Title: Ethics vs. Regulation: Converging Frameworks for Trustworthy Human-Centered AI in Biomedical Research

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi PhD,  is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering (Guy Mace Professor of Engineering) at Missouri State University (MSU) in the Engineering Program, a joint program with Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri. She received the MSU Atwood Excellence in Research and Teaching award 2924 and Board of Governors Faculty Excellence award 2025. She serves as chair of IEEE CIS Technical Committee on Ethical, Legal, Social, Environmental and Human Dimensions of AI/CI (SHIELD). She is also a Technical Representative on the Administrative committee of IEEE Engineering Medicine and Biology Society.  Her research focus on developing explainable and ethical machine learning/AI algorithms for broad utility in biomedical applications.

Presenter: Dr. Peng Qiu

Title: Bulk RNA-seq Deconvolution via a U-Net Based Deep Learning Model

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Fellow
• Peng Qiu is a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. His research interests are in the areas of bioinformatics, machine learning, data integration, statistical signal processing, with applications in genomics, single-cell analysis, and cancer.

Presenter: Dr. Mobashir Shandhi

Title: Developing Physiology-Informed, Reliable, and Clinically-Validated Digital Health Technologies

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Assistant Professor, School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Biodesign Institute, and School of Medicine and Medical Engineering, ASU
• His research interests are developing reliable and equitable digital health technologies (wearable sensors and machine learning algorithms) that can enable personalized health care and remote patient monitoring for patients with chronic and infectious diseases.
• He has a particular focus on developing these digital health technologies that can provide a low-cost alternative to current diagnostic and monitoring devices used in the clinic and remote home monitoring, which can ultimately be used in limited-resource settings, improve access to health care, and reduce health-related disparities.
• He is a recent recipient of the American Heart Association Career Development Award.

Presenter: Dr. Puneet Sharma

Title: Getting AI to the Bedside

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Division of Neonatology
• His research, which has been supported by both the National Institutes of Health and American Academy of Pediatrics, focuses on the use of artificial intelligence to improve diagnostic and treatment strategies for critically ill newborns.
• He is especially focused on the development of imaging and multi-modal AI for critically ill newborns, and this work was featured as an Editor’s Choice presentation at TEDx Atlanta 2025.

Presenter: Dr. Wenqi Shi

Title: Accelerating Clinical Research and Biomedical Discovery with Agentic Reasoning in LLMs

STAR-AI Theme: LLMs in Healthcare

Bio:

• Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Data Science and Biostatistics at UT Southwestern
• Dr. Shi’s research interest lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and healthcare, advancing both fundamental algorithms and applied systems for precision and personalized medicine. With a dedicated focus on pediatric healthcare, cancer, and rare diseases, she actively works on developing large language models (LLMs) for translational medicine, advancing agentic AI for biomedical discovery, and promoting responsible AI practices to improve real-world clinical research and practice.

Presenter: Dr. Saurabh Sinha

Title: Spatial Transcriptomics and the Art of Differential Expression

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Engineering
• Saurabh Sinha received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2002, and after post-doctoral work at the Rockefeller University with Eric Siggia, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 2005, where he held the positions of Founder Professor in Computer Science and Director of Computational Genomics in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology until 2022.
• He joined Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022, as Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Engineering, with joint appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Industrial & Systems Engineering. Sinha’s research is in the area of bioinformatics, with a focus on regulatory genomics and systems biology.
• Sinha is an NSF CAREER award recipient and has been funded by NIH, NSF and USDA. He co-directed an NIH BD2K Center of Excellence and was a thrust lead in the NSF AI Institute at UIUC. He led the educational program of the Mayo Clinic-University of Illinois Alliance, and co-led data science education for the Carle Illinois College of Medicine.
• Sinha has served as Program co-Chair of the annual RECOMB Regulatory and Systems Genomics conference and served on the Board of Directors for the International Society for Computational Biology (2018-2021). He was a recipient of the University Scholar award of the University of Illinois, and selected as a Fellow of the AIMBE in 2018.

Presenter: Dr. Zachary West

Title: Getting AI to the Bedside

STAR-AI Theme: Multimodal AI

Bio:

• Fellow, Emory University School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics, Division of Cardiology
• His work bridges clinical care and artificial intelligence for patients with cardiac conditions, focusing on integrating predictive analytics into real-time hospital workflows to improve patient outcomes
• He leads the development and implementation of a machine learning algorithm designed to detect early clinical deterioration in pediatric cardiology patients, having demonstrated that the late recognition of these patients worsens mortality