2018 MIT Information and Communication Technologies Conference

Karl Koster is the Executive Director of MIT Corporate Relations. MIT Corporate Relations includes the MIT Industrial Liaison Program and MIT Startup Exchange.

In that capacity, Koster and his staff work with the leadership of MIT and senior corporate executives to design and implement strategies for fostering corporate partnerships with the Institute. Koster and his team have also worked to identify and design a number of major international programs for MIT, which have been characterized by the establishment of strong, programmatic linkages among universities, industry, and governments. Most recently these efforts have been extended to engage the surrounding innovation ecosystem, including its vibrant startup and small company community, into MIT's global corporate and university networks.

Koster is also the Director of Alliance Management in the Office of Strategic Alliances and Technology Transfer (OSATT). OSATT was launched in Fall 2019 as part of a plan to reinvent MIT’s research administration infrastructure. OSATT develops agreements that facilitate MIT projects, programs and consortia with industrial, nonprofit, and international sponsors, partners and collaborators.

He is past chairman of the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP), an organization that seeks to enhance the value of collaborative partnerships between universities and corporations.

He graduated from Brown University with a BA in geology and economics, and received an MS from MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to returning to MIT, Koster worked as a management consultant in Europe, Latin America, and the United States on projects for private and public sector organizations.

Randall S. Wright is a program director with MIT's Industrial Liaison Program. He manages the interface between the managements of companies, headquartered in the United States and Europe, and the senior administration and faculty of MIT.

As a program director for MIT, he convenes teams of researchers and faculty members to provide on-going emerging technology intelligence and strategic advice for the world's leading technology companies. He is a sought-after speaker, delivering keynote speeches focused on emerging technology opportunities and challenges, and counter-intuitive insights in executive panels and discussions. Randall draws on extensive experience advising executives on a range of emerging technology areas including digital transformation, big data, robotics, green buildings, water efficiency, energy storage, biofuels, advanced materials, and manufacturing. He provides navigation and recommendations on the emerging technologies and adoption landscapes critical to future business growth, as well as creation, development, and execution of programs of research between industry and MIT.

Randall has been bestowed by Federal President of Austria Dr. Heinz Fischer with the decoration Cross of Honor in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria for his "outstanding contribution to the development of relations between Austria and MIT".

Prior to MIT, Randall was a marketing manager for Pfizer, Inc., a major U.S. pharmaceuticals company. He was also a strategic planning analyst for Pennzoil Company--a Fortune 500 oil and natural resources company. Randall is an invited lecturer at Northeastern University's Executive M.B.A. Program where he lectures on innovation and corporate strategy. His column Innovation Counterculture looks at ideas and perspectives on strategy, organization, and thinking to help executives connect to the world of innovation outside their organizations and he is published regularly in Research-Technology Management, the award-winning journal of the Industrial Research Institute.

Munther Dahleh was appointed director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, effective July 1, 2015. (See MIT News article with full details.) He was previously the associate department head of EECS. He is also a member MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).

Prof. Dahleh joined LIDS as an assistant professor of EECS in 1987 and became a full professor in 1998. He spent the spring of 1993 as a visiting professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, and has held consulting positions with several companies in the U.S. and abroad.

Prof. Dahleh is internationally known for his fundamental contributions to robust control theory, computational methods for controller design, the interplay between information and control, the fundamental limits of learning and decision in networked systems, and the detection and mitigation of systemic risk in interconnected and networked systems.

Leo Anthony Celi has practiced medicine in three continents, giving him broad perspectives in healthcare delivery. As clinical research director and principal research scientist at MIT Laboratory of Computational Physiology (LCP), he brings together clinicians and data scientists to support research using data routinely collected in the intensive care unit (ICU). His group built and maintains the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC) database. This public-access database has been meticulously de-identified and is freely shared online with the research community. It is an unparalleled research resource; over 2000 investigators from more than 30 countries have free access to the clinical data under a data use agreement. In 2016, LCP partnered with Philips eICU Research Institute to host the eICU database with more than 2 million ICU patients admitted across the United States. The goal is to scale the database globally and build an international collaborative research community around health data analytics.

Leo founded and co-directs Sana, a cross-disciplinary organization based at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, whose objective is to leverage information technology to improve health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. At its core is an open-source mobile tele-health platform that allows for capture, transmission, and archiving of complex medical data (e.g. images, videos, physiologic signals such as ECG, EEG and oto-acoustic emission responses), in addition to patient demographic and clinical information. Sana is the inaugural recipient of both the mHealth (Mobile Health) Alliance Award from the United Nations Foundation and the Wireless Innovation Award from the Vodafone Foundation in 2010. The software has since been implemented around the globe including India, Kenya, Lebanon, Haiti, Mongolia, Uganda, Brazil, Ethiopia, Argentina, and South Africa.

He is one of the course directors for HST.936—global health informatics to improve quality of care, and HST.953—secondary analysis of electronic health records, both at MIT. He is an editor of the textbook for each course, both released under an open access license. The textbook Secondary Analysis of Electronic Health Records came out in October 2016 and was downloaded over 48,000 times in the first two months of publication. The course “Global Health Informatics to Improve Quality of Care” was launched under MITx in February 2017.

Leo was featured as a designer in the Smithsonian Museum National Design Triennial “Why Design Now?” held at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City in 2010 for his work in global health informatics. He was also selected as one of 12 external reviewers for the National Academy of Medicine 2014 report “Investing in Global Health Systems: Sustaining gains, transforming lives.”

Kalyan is a principal research scientist in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS, MIT). Previously he was a research scientist at CSAIL (CSAIL, MIT). His primary research interests are in machine learning and building large scale statistical models that enable discovery from large amounts of data. His research is at the intersection of big data, machine learning, and data science. He directs a research group called Data to AI in the new MIT Institute for Data Systems and Society (IDSS). The group is interested in big data science and machine learning, and is focused on how to solve foundational issues preventing artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions from reaching their full potential for societal applications.

Bhaskar Pant is the Executive Director of MIT Professional Education, the arm of MIT that provides technical professionals a gateway to MIT expertise via education courses and programs designed for them. More than 1,500 professionals from over sixty countries arrive on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, every summer to attend courses of a diverse set of technical disciplines. In addition, over 10,000 professionals worldwide are now attending MIT’s online professional courses that include topics such as Big Data. MIT Professional Education is also offering select MIT courses in locations in Asia, Latin America, and Europe

Prior to joining MIT, Mr. Pant held several leadership positions such as serving as Managing Director, Asia Pacific, for the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the world’s foremost academic testing organization headquartered in Princeton, N.J. As managing director, he was responsible for overseeing the company’s English language testing operations throughout Asia. This included the opening of a subsidiary in China that administered the TOEIC English proficiency test for engineers and other working professionals in the nation.

Previously, Mr. Pant led the global corporate training arm of the World Learning Graduate Institute in Vermont and held senior management positions at media and media technology companies such as Sony Corporation and Turner Broadcasting/CNN. Mr. Pant was the first President of Turner Broadcasting’s subsidiary in India.

Mr. Pant holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Rochester and a graduate degree in communications and management from Indiana University in Bloomington. Besides managing MIT Professional Education, Mr. Pant teaches intercultural communication to engineering students at MIT and management students at the Harvard University Extension School.

Bruna Braga serves as the Partnerships Manager at Solve. In this capacity, Bruna leads fundraising and partnership efforts, developing and managing relationships with sponsors and partners to contribute to the advancement of Solve’s mission of solving the world’s biggest challenges through collaboration. Bruna also oversees the relationships between Solve and its advisors and other members of the MIT community. Prior to joining Solve, Bruna served as an International Manager at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), where she worked on CGI’s expansion into Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. She holds an MS in Marketing from New York University, where she graduated with distinction, and a BA in Business Administration from the Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo - Fundação Getulio Vargas (EAESP-FGV) in São Paulo, Brazil. Bruna is fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Sangbae Kim, is the director of the Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory and an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on the bio-inspired robot design by extracting principles from animals. Kim's achievements on bio-inspired robot development include the world's first directional adhesive inspired from gecko lizards, and a climbing robot, Stickybot, that utilizes the directional adhesives to climb smooth surfaces featured in TIME's best inventions in 2006. Recent achievement includes the development of the MIT Cheetah capable of stable outdoor running up to 13mph and jumping over any obstacles autonomously. This achievement was covered by more than 200 media articles. He is a recipient of best paper award from International Conference on Robotics and Automation (2007), King-Sun Fu Memorial Transactions on Robotics (2008) and IEEE/ASME transactions on mechatronics (2016), DARPA Young Faculty Award (2013), NSF CAREER award (2014), and Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching (2015).

Marcus Dahllöf leads MIT Startup Exchange, which facilitates connections between MIT-connected startups and corporate members of the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP). Dahllöf manages networking events, workshops, the STEX25 accelerator, opportunity postings, and helps define the strategic direction of MIT Startup Exchange. He is a two-time tech entrepreneur (one exit in cybersecurity), and has previously held roles in finance, software engineering, corporate strategy, and business development at emerging tech companies and Fortune 100 corporations in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe. Marcus was a member of the Swedish national rowing team and he is a mentor at the MIT Venture Mentoring Service.

Vladimir Bulović is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holding the Fariborz Maseeh Chair in Emerging Technology.  He directs the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory, co-leads the MIT-Eni Solar Frontiers Center, leads the Tata GridEdge program, and is the Founding Director of MIT.nano, MIT's new 200,000 sqft nano-fabrication, nano-characterization, and prototyping facility. He is an author of over 250 research articles (cited over 50,000 times and recognized as the top 1% of the most highly cited in the Web of Science). He is an inventor of over 100 U.S. patents in areas of light emitting diodes, lasers, photovoltaics, photodetectors, chemical sensors, programmable memories, and micro-electro machines, majority of which have been licensed and utilized by both start-up and multinational companies.  The three start-up companies Bulović co-founded jointly employ over 350 people, and include Ubiquitous Energy, Inc., developing nanostructured solar technologies, Kateeva, Inc., focused on development of printed electronics, and QD Vision, Inc. (acquired in 2016) that produced quantum dot optoelectronic components.  Products of these companies have been used by millions.  Bulović was the first Associate Dean for Innovation of the School of Engineering and the Inaugural co-Director of MIT’s Innovation Initiative, which he co-led from 2013 to 2018. For his passion for teaching Bulović has been recognized with the MacVicar Fellowship, MIT’s highest teaching honor.  He completed his Electrical Engineering B.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees at Princeton University.

Manuel Ventero is the Lead Data Scientist at Trust·u. He is a computer systems networking and telecommunications engineer working at BBVA Data & Analytics, the center of excellence in Big Data Analytics at BBVA. At the moment working for the Risk Innovation program, his work is now focused on disrupting SME online lending by applying innovative, fast and accurate credit scoring algorithms.

Previously to switching to the wonderful and dusty world of data analytics, he worked at Telefonica’s startup program and wholesale services afterwards, while working at a startup that he co-owned, Golsie, The Social Network of Achievement.

Max Shulaker began as assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2016, where he leads the Novels (Novel Electronic Systems Group) at MIT. Prior to joining MIT, he was at Stanford University where he received his BS, Masters, and PhD in Electrical Engineering. Shulaker’s research interests include the broad area of nanosystems. His research group focuses on understanding and optimizing multidisciplinary interactions across the entire computing stack – from low-level synthesis of nanomaterials, to fabrication processes and circuit design for emerging nanotechnologies, up to new architectures – to enable the next generation of high performance and energy-efficient computing systems. His research results include the demonstration of the first carbon nanotube computer(highlighted on the cover of Nature and presented as a Research Highlight to the US Congress by the US NSF), the first digital sub-systems built entirely using carbon nanotube transistors (awarded the ISSCC Jack Raper Award for Outstanding Technology Directions Paper), the first monolithically-integrated 3D integrated circuits combining arbitrary vertical stacking of logic and memory, the highest performance carbon nanotube transistors to-date, and the first highly-scaled carbon nanotube transistors fabricated in a VLSI-compatible manner.

Jeanne Ross is a recognized expert in enterprise architecture. Her book, Enterprise Architecture as Strategy (2006), was recently named by Forbes magazine as one of 13 must-read books for technology executives. Jeanne’s current research focuses on how established companies will transform themselves for success for the digital economy. She has helped bring architecture into senior management strategy discussions at companies like Aetna, China Mobile, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, CEMEX, Schneider Electric, and PepsiCo. Jeanne has published in major practitioner and academic journals, including The Wall Street Journal, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Harvard Business Review. She is currently writing her fourth book, a follow up to her 2006 book, which will examine architectural requirements for digital companies.

Sheri Brodeur is a Director of Corporate Relations at MIT. Prior to this, she spent 22 years at Hewlett-Packard Company in several roles. Her most recent position was in the HP Labs Strategy and Innovation Office. The role of this organization is to set HP Labs' research strategy and extend HP's internal research capacity by partnering with universities, governments, and other companies on a global scale to rapidly advance the positive impact of technology on the world.

Sheri spent 15 years with HP Labs, HP's corporate researcher center, managing major university alliances and programs, including a $25M program with MIT. She has been responsible for managing global higher education technology programs in the areas of Security, Digital Libraries (DSpace), Information Management, and Sustainability.

Prior to this role she spent the previous eight years at Hewlett-Packard in the sales organization moving from the position of Field Sales Engineer to Global Account Manager. In this role she was responsible for selling, supporting and delivering high end test and measurement solutions for the communications industry.

Brodeur has a BS in Ceramic Engineering from Alfred University and an MS in Solid State Science from the Materials Research Laboratory at Penn State University.

Thomas W. Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. At MIT, he is also a Professor of Information Technology and a Professor of Work and Organizational Studies. Previously, he was the founder and director of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and one of the two founding co-directors of the MIT Initiative on “Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century.” Professor Malone teaches classes on organizational design, information technology, and leadership, and his research focuses on how new organizations can be designed to take advantage of the possibilities provided by information technology.

For example, Professor Malone predicted, in an article published in 1987, many of the major developments in electronic business over the following 25 years, including electronic buying and selling for many kinds of products. Then, in 2004, Professor Malone summarized two decades of his research in his critically acclaimed book The Future of Work. His newest book, Superminds, appeared in May 2018. Professor Malone has also published over 100 articles, research papers, and book chapters; he is an inventor with 11 patents; and he is the co-editor of four books.

Malone has been a cofounder of four software companies and has consulted and served as a board member for a number of other organizations. His background includes work as a research scientist at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a Ph.D. from Stanford University, an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich, and degrees in applied mathematics, engineering, and psychology.

Matthew Claudel is a designer, researcher, and writer focused on the opportunities and challenges of urban innovation. Matthew has been published widely in the fields of architecture, innovation science, technology, and art, and co-authored two books: Open Source Architecture and The City of Tomorrow. Matthew has given a Talk@ Google, taught at the Politecnico di Torino e Milano, lectured at the Harvard Business school, and was featured in the BBC Future series. He is a World Economic Forum ‘Global Shaper,’ serves as a part of the United Nations' Digital Technologies for Sustainable Urbanization Network, and is an active protagonist of Hans Ulrich Obrist’s 89plus. Matthew is a strategic advisor to Future Cities Canada and the McConnell Foundation's "Cities for People" initiative, and he is the Head of Research at Beco, a spatial data analytics company. Matthew is co-affiliated between the MIT Department of Urban Studies & Planning and the MIT Lab for Innovation Science & Policy for his PhD, and is on the leadership team of DesignX, a new initiative in the MIT School of Architecture + Planning that accelerates innovation for the built environment. He studied architecture at Yale, where he received the Sudler Prize, the highest award for creative arts.

Stephen Walter researches and designs civic media and technology. At Boston’s Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, he helps lead efforts around experiments in civic technology, storytelling, third spaces, and various research collaborations, like the Local Sense Lab.

Previously, Walter was the founding managing director of the Engagement Lab, an applied research lab for reimagining civic engagement in a digital era. There he led the design and development of online engagement platforms like Community PlanIt, digital games like Civic Seed, analog games like UpRiver, and initiatives like the UN Gamechanger Fellowship and Games for Social Change Program. He’s conducted action research projects in places like Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Moldova, Zambia, Egypt, and Bhutan, and has worked with the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, the United Nations Development Programme, the US Department of State, and the PBS television shows Frontline and Nova. His research appears in the books Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice (MIT Press) and Meaningful Inefficiencies: Encounter, Dialogue and Relation in the Smart City (Oxford University Press), and he is a research affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society

Sharon Goh helps retailers optimize their distribution center experience through software integration and automation. Most recently, she managed the global support and implementation teams for Amazon’s robotic warehouse fleet. Managing a team of humans that maintained an army of robots, she saw firsthand the impact front line managers will have on the future of work. Sharon is currently an MBA candidate at MIT’s Sloan School of Management graduating May 2018. Prior to MIT, she implemented automation for retailers such as The Home Depot, Macy’s and Tiffany’s. She has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. She currently lives in a log cabin in New Hampshire with her wife and three cats where she embraces the grey area between luddite and futurist.

David Mindell is an engineer and historian. An expert in human relationships with robotics and autonomous systems, he has led or participated in more than 25 oceanographic expeditions. From 2005 to 2011 he was Director of MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society. He is the author of five books and co-founder of Humatics Corporation, which develops technologies to transform how robots and autonomous systems work in human environments.