Dr. Jennifer Hurley received her B.S. from Juniata College in 2004 in molecular biology. She did her Ph.D. at Rutgers/UMDNJ with Drs. Nancy Woychik and Masayori Inouye, studying the function of Toxin-Antitoxin modules in bacteria. She was recognized by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology for excellence in research for her study of the HigBA toxin-antitoxin module. Jennifer did her Postdoctoral fellowship at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth with Drs. Jay Dunlap and Jennifer Loros, investigating the relationship between the core proteins and the output of the circadian clock in Neurospora. Her Fellowship was funded by the Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and she received a Perkins award for her contributions to Neurospora research. Dr. Hurley joined the Department of Biological Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2015. Her lab has received the 2020 Junior Faculty Research Award from the School of Science at RPI, the 2020 Society for Research in Biological Rhythms Junior Faculty Research Award, the Beadle and Tatum Award from the Neurospora Society, and NIH MIRA award and an NSF CAREER award.

Jen Pazour is a Professor and the PhD Program Director in the department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. Her research and teaching focus on the development and use of mathematical models to guide decision making for logistics and supply chain challenges. Modern supply chain systems need to fulfill a wide variety of requests quickly with little warning in small units to many dispersed locations at low costs. These characteristics are fundamentally different than yesterday’s demand that aggregated at given locations. In the face of this disconnect, her team's research thinks differently about how supply chain resources are acquired, managed, and allocated to fulfill customer requests. In doing so, her team's contributions span a diverse array of applications, including resource sharing platforms, peer-to-peer transportation systems, on-demand warehousing platforms, and crowdsourced order fulfillment systems, as well as facility logistics and transportation systems. Methodologically, they are modelers, whose core intellectual strength is in the development of mathematical and computational representations of sociotechnical systems and processes. Their research approach is to (1) create optimization models encompassing the primary system and decision trade-offs, (2) discover solution approaches and algorithms to efficiently solve the optimization models, (3) use the developed models and approaches to better understand the implications of the sociotechnical system’s design and operation, and then (4) through theoretical results, computational experiments, and statistical analysis provide managerial insights and policy recommendations. Her team has created a wide range of operations research tools, including integer linear programs, bi-level optimization formulations, queuing models, and analytical models. Jen is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, a Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D Scholars Award, a National Academies of Science Gulf Research Program Early-Career Fellowship, and a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. She was awarded the Rensselaer Alumni Teaching Award, the IISE Logistics and Supply Chain Division Teaching Award, and the IISE Dr. Hamed K. Eldin Outstanding Early Career IE in Academia Award. She is an Associate Editor of Transportation Science, IISE Transactions, Military Operations Research, and OMEGA. She has served professional societies, for example, as a speaker and session organizer at the NAE Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, as the chair of the INFORMS professional recognition committee, chair of the INFORMS undergraduate operations research prize, chair of INFORMS TSL Facility Logistics SIG, the communications chair of the IISE Logistics and Supply Chain division and is on the IISE Transaction Social Media Team. She proudly holds three degrees in Industrial Engineering (a B.S. from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas). More information can be found at her research and teaching blog: http://jenpazour.wordpress.com/

Professor Kuruzovich’s course on database management integrates the technical challenges of managing data with the business challenges of deriving value through statistical analysis, visualization, and data mining. Professor Kuruzovich’s research broadly examines the means through which both individuals and organizations derive value from information systems and focuses on the intersection between information systems and marketing. His research has been published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Marketing, Information Systems Research, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.   Professor Kuruzovich’s previous work experience includes consulting experience with numerous Fortune 500 companies and several high-technology startups.

James Hendler is the Director of the Future of Computing Institute and the Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web and Cognitive Sciences at RPI and is also director of the RPI-IBM Artificial Intelligence Research Collaboration.  Hendler is a data scientist with specific interests in open government and scientific data, data science for healthcare, AI and machine learning, semantic data integration and the use of data in government. One of the originators of the Semantic Web, he has authored over 450 books, technical papers, and articles in the areas of Open Data, the Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, and data policy and governance. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002. He is the first computer scientist ever to have served on the Board of Reviewing editors for Science. In 2010, Hendler was selected as an “Internet Web Expert” by the US government and helped in the development and launch of the US data.gov open data website. In 2013, he was appointed as the Open Data Advisor to New York State and in 2015 appointed a member of the US Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee. In 2016, became a member of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information, in 2017 a member of the Director’s Advisory Committee of the National Security Directorate of PNNL, and in 2021 became chair of the ACM’s global Technology Policy Council. Hendler is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Public Administration, the AAAI, AAAS, ACM, BCS and IEEE.

Dr. Ameres returned to RPI after a successful career in industry developing multimedia tools and technology in a number of fields. He has developed groundbreaking MIDI and music software, tools for game developers as well as video and audio compression and streaming technology (including over a dozen patents now held by Google) that has become the format of choice on many of the most popular video platforms on the internet. Ameres completed his M.S. and Ph.D. at RPI while working as Sr Research Engineer at Rensselaer's Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) where he and collaborators developed "The Campfire", a novel, immersive and interactive visualization system allowing for a unique form of "spatialization" of complex data. He continues to develop applications for The Campfire as an affiliate of Rensselaer's Institute for Data Exploration and Analytics (IDEA). Fun facts: Ameres' family connection to RPI goes back to the class of 1918 and includes 6 alumni of the Institute (so far)! Coincidentally, Ameres' high school best friend is a direct descendent of none other than Stephen Van Rensselaer himself!