Jason Mars is a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan where he directs Clarity Lab, one of the best places in the world to be trained in A.I. and system design. Jason is also co-founder and CEO of Clinc, the cutting-edge A.I. startup that developed the world’s most advanced conversational AI. Jason has devoted his career to solving difficult real-world problems, building some of the worlds most sophisticated salable systems for A.I., computer vision, and natural language processing. Prior to University of Michigan, Jason was a professor at UCSD. He also worked at Google and Intel. Jason’s work constructing large-scale A.I. and deep learning-based systems and technology has been recognized globally and continues to have a significant impact on industry and academia. Jason holds a PhD in Computer Science from UVA.
Shanika Karunasekera is a Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems and the Deputy Dean (Academic) in the Faculty of Engineeering and IT. Shanika completed a BSc in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka with a First Class Honours in 1990. She was the recipient of the UNESCO Gold Medal for the Best Engineering Undergraduate at the University in 1990.She completed a PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Cambridge, UK in 1994. From 1995 to 2002 she worked for Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs Innovation, USA where she was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff. Shanika joined the University of Melbourne in 2003. Her current research focusses on real-time analytics and data stream mining, with applications in Social Media Analytics and Autonomous Traffic Management. Shanika has extensive research interests in distributed computing, network intrusion detection, sensor networks, social network analysis and mining, mobile computing, software engineering and STEM education. Shanika has published widely in high ranking journals and conferences in her research discipline. Shanika has also established research collaborations with many industries and government bodies. Shanika is a passionate educator who has won several excellence in teaching awards including a National Carrick Citation in 2007, and Kelvin Medal and Excellence in teaching award from the Melbourne School of Engineering in 2006.
Thrishantha Nanayakkara is the Director of Morph Lab in Imperial College London and a Professor in Robotics in Imperial College. Prof. Thrishantha has been a senior lecturer in robotics at King’s College London, Radcliffe Fellow, Harvard University, USA, research affiliate at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, USA, and a research fellow in the department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, USA. His research interests are in morphological computation, soft robotics, and human-robot interaction. He has been the Head of the Robotics and Manufacturing Theme and a Reader in Design Engineering and Robotics at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London.