IAD Days

Tazzie Howard is a Customer Engineer at Google Public Sector, with a speciality in geospatial data and analytics. She supports state, local, and higher-ed customers in harnessing the power of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for geospatial solutions. Prior to joining Google, she spent 15 years supporting the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) as a scientist, analyst, and team leader.  She worked closely on research initiatives, designed and executed training programs, and led operational teams, applying geospatial analysis and data science techniques to critical National Security and Intelligence missions. Holding an MS in Geosciences from Pennsylvania State University, her academic foundation complements her work experience in Earth systems, remote sensing, and data analysis methodologies.

Dr. Manish Parashar is Director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute, Chair in Computational Science and Engineering, and Presidential Professor, Kalhert School of Computing at the University of Utah. He recently completed an IPA appointment at the National Science Foundation as Office Director of the NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure where he oversaw investments in national cyberinfrastructure. He also served as co-chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on the Future Advanced Computing Ecosystem and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force.

Dr. Yiyu Shi is currently a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, the site director of National Science Foundation I/UCRC Alternative and Sustainable Intelligent Computing, and the director of the Sustainable Computing Lab (SCL). He is also a visiting scientist at Boston Children’s Hospital, the primary pediatric program of Harvard Medical School. He received his B.S. in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2005, the M.S and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007 and 2009 respectively. His current research interests focus on hardware intelligence and biomedical applications. In recognition of his research, more than a dozen of his papers have been nominated for or awarded as the best paper in top journals and conferences, including the 2023 IEEE/ACM William J. McCalla ICCAD Best Paper Award, 2021 IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design Donald O Pederson Best Paper Award. He is also the recipient of Facebook Research Award, IBM Invention Achievement Award, NSF CAREER Award, IEEE Region 5 Outstanding Individual Achievement Award, IEEE Computer Society Mid-Career Research Achievement Award, among others. He has served on the technical program committee of many international conferences. He is the deputy editor-in-chief of IEEE VLSI CAS Newsletter, and an associate editor of various IEEE and ACM journals. He is an IEEE CEDA distinguished lecturer and an ACM distinguished speaker.

Dr. Hageman Blair is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics. She is a co-Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. She oversees educational activities and initiatives and serves as the Director of the MPS program in Data Science and Applications. Her research is in Computational Biology. Her research group has made research contributions, and software tools, in network inference and analysis, module detection and data clustering.

Holly Jean Buck is an assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the University at Buffalo. She is a social scientist whose research focuses on public engagement with emerging technologies. At UB, she teaches courses in environmental justice, energy and society, and emerging technologies and sustainability. She holds a PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University.

Dianna Cichocki serves as a Clinical Associate Professor for the School of Management at the University at Buffalo. Her recent course offerings have included, "Statistical Decisions in Management" in the School of Management's Undergraduate Program, "Statistical Foundations in Analytics" in the online MBA and MSBA programs, and "Data Modeling" in the MBA program, and "Communicating with Data" in the School of Engineering's Undergraduate Program. Beyond her teaching commitments, Dianna actively engages in workshops and presentations at local, state, and national levels. These sessions focus on integrating technology into statistical practices and advocating for effective data visualization methods. Moreover, she has led multiple industry training sessions aimed at bolstering managerial expertise across different organizational tiers.

Sai is a Software Engineer at AWS Redshift. He is interested in anything and everything about databases. Not so long ago, he finished his PhD from UB under the wise guidance of Atri Rudra. In the past, he has worked on Codes for Distributed Storage (Intern, Microsoft Research), Ads Quality Infra (Intern, Google) and Product Support (Engineer, Microsoft). His work has been published in Principles of Database Systems (PODS) and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. In a previous avatar, he trained teams for ACM-ICPC (World Finals 2013, 2014).

As UB’s inaugural chief sustainability officer since 2011, Ryan McPherson works to create a culture of innovative and collaborative sustainability at UB and implements strategies to help position the university as a sustainability leader in the community, state and nation, as well as across higher education. Among his chief priorities has been setting 10 key strategies to implement within the next decade as part of the university’s climate action plan. He also has worked to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals across campus and New York as part of the broader work to create the next generation of change agents who are building the future we seek.  

Under McPherson’s oversight, UB has already reduced its carbon footprint by 35% and been recognized as a national model for climate action by Vice President Harris, received the Green Power Leadership Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency, won the New York State Department of Environmental Excellence Award, and rated #1 in the world by the Times Higher Education Impact Assessment in taking urgent action to combat climate change. 

Prior to this role, Ryan was the Associate Vice President for Government & Community Relations where he successfully led a multi-year New York State effort that resulted in the enactment of the most comprehensive higher education in the previous two decades.  He is also very active in the community and sits on numerous boards including the Nature Conservancy (New York), the Western New York Sustainable Business Roundtable, and Gobike Buffalo.  Mr. McPherson is also an adjunct faculty member at the University at Buffalo School of Management.  Ryan received his B.A. in political science from the University of New Hampshire and graduated magna cum laude from the University at Buffalo Law School with a concentration in environmental law.  

Ryan enjoys trail running through nature (and specifically mountains) and spending time with his wife and two near adult children as they work to instill a love of nature and advance all things biophilia. 

Jeffrey C. Miecznikowski (“Mesh-KNEE-cow-ski”) received his Ph.D. in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006. In 2006, he started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB) and received tenure in 2012 with appointment to Associate Professor. He has previously served as the Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Diversity and as the interim Chair of Biostatistics at UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions. He has 75 published peer-reviewed articles in statistical journals and applied interdisciplinary journals and is currently an associate editor for the Journal of Applied Statistics and Frontiers in Genetics.

Alexandra Oprea is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo. She works in the interdisciplinary field of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Her research primarily deals with democracy, education, and the way in which the two inform and constrain each other. 

Dr. Carolyn Rosé is a Professor of Language Technologies and Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, and Program Director for the Masters of Computational Data Science Program. Her research program focuses on computational modeling of discourse to enable scientific understanding the social and pragmatic nature of conversational interaction of all forms, and using this understanding to build intelligent computational systems for improving collaborative interactions. She is best known for her work on dynamic support of collaborative learning using intelligent conversational agents in online, face-to-face, and hybrid settings, triggered through real time analysis of conversational interactions. Her research group’s highly interdisciplinary work, published in over 300 peer reviewed publications, is represented in the top venues of 5 fields: namely, Language Technologies, Learning Sciences, Cognitive Science, Educational Technology, and Human-Computer Interaction, with awards in 4 of these fields. She is a Past President and Inaugural Fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, Senior member of IEEE, Founding Chair of the International Alliance to Advance Learning in the Digital Era, and Executive Editor (formerly Co-Editor-in-Chief) of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. She also serves as a 2020-2021 AAAS Leshner Leadership Institute Fellow for Public Engagement with Science, with a focus on public engagement with Artificial Intelligence.

Mohammad earned his PhD from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in Biomedical Engineering. He now works as a systems architect at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, specializing in accelerating data-driven research through his expertise in full-stack development. Mohammad also serves as an adjunct lecturer at the University at Buffalo, where he passionately imparts his knowledge of Python and databases to aspiring data scientists.

Dr. Ziliang Zong is a Professor of the Computer Science Department at Texas State University. He is a passionate researcher, teacher, and practitioner of sustainable computing. He published over 100 papers in green AI, green cloud, green software engineering, energy efficient HPC, and green computing education. He is a general member and champion speaker of the Green Software Foundation, an Associate Editor of the Sustainable Computing Journal, and Director of the Energy Efficient Computing and Systems Laboratory at Texas State University.