Joseph K. Assan, PhD- Conference Chair and Organizer
Joseph K. Assan is the director of the Sustainable International Development Program at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University. He is also the Division Director of Sustainability, Resiliency, and Cyber Innovation at the Center for Global Development and Sustainability at the Heller School. Joseph was an Assistant Professor of Development Practice at Trinity College Dublin where he acted as the Associate Director of the Masters in Development Practice Program. Prior to this, Dr. Joseph Assan served as the Director of the International Development Program at the University of Liverpool. Joseph’s expertise and interests range from livelihood security, political economy employment security, resilience, and the application of new cyber technologies and AI. He has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed journals on sustainable livelihoods, exploitative employment, and development. He has organized and spoken at several academic and policy conferences, including Capitol Hill, discussing policy strategies for growth, livelihood security, and reducing poverty and inequality.
Chinasa T. Okolo, PhD
Chinasa T. Okolo is a Fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation in the Governance Studies program at Brookings. She holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University and is a member of the ACM US Technology Policy Committee. Her research focuses on AI governance in emerging markets, AI literacy upskilling, human-centered approaches to AI explainability, the future of data work, and leveraging AI to advance global health in Africa and Asia. Okolo’s research also examined how explainability can be best leveraged in AI-enabled technologies deployed throughout the Global South. Dr. Okolo’s work has been published at top-tier venues in HCI and sociotechnical computing (ACM CHI, CSCW, and COMPASS). Her work has been supported by funding from The National GEM Consortium, Oracle Corporation, the North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Google. She has been covered in venues like VICE, Bloomberg, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and VentureBeat, amongst others. Okolo has also been recognized as a Trailblazer in Engineering, a Rising Star in Management Science & Engineering, and one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics. She has also been featured in TechCrunch and provided commentary to leading outlets such as the MIT Technology Review, New York Times, VICE, Scientific American, Fast Company, Voice of America, Rest of World, and Devex.
Prof. Rick Trilling, JD
Rick Trilling is a Professor of Cybersecurity Management at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. Professor Trilling has earned a JD, an MBA, a recent Masters in Cybersecurity from Brown University, and an undergraduate degree from Brandeis University. After decades of practicing computer law and teaching at Boston University School of Law, he created some of the earliest cybersecurity management curricula nearly a decade ago. Rick has published numerous journal articles and presented at many conferences, earning designation as an RSA Cybersecurity Scholar. His research focuses primarily on democratizing affordable cybersecurity planning, but he has also developed inexpensive Secure Operations Centers & Cyber Ranges as well as virtual incident response hardware for faster reaction time.
Nicola Assan, PhD
Nicola Assan is a clinical regulatory researcher at the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. She holds a PhD in regulatory law from the University of Salford, Manchester, United Kingdom. Her research interest relates to clinical research and the application of current and emerging cyber technologies in the field of cancer research and safety policy, and their enforcement. Nicola has over twenty-five years of experience in the field of regulation and enforcement, having worked in the Boston Children's Hospital and the Department of Health and Human Services, in the City of Newton, Massachusetts. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals on issues related to health and human wellbeing, food and nutrition. In addition, Nicola has also served as an Environmental Health and Regulatory Officer with Liverpool City Council, UK. She was involved in the implementation of public health programs with hospitals and food safety management programs in the food industry, schools, and ethnic food businesses. She has also been involved in the training of management personnel in food safety and hygiene.
Mercy Luguterah, PhD
Dr. Mercy Luguterah is an Early Childhood Education Consultant, Licensed Social Worker, Author, and Behavioral Science Expert. She has a unique passion for exploring the concept of cultural competence, biopsychosocial analysis, youth engagement, as well as technology use and its impact on overall behavioral and mental health outcomes. Dr. Luguterah is an adjunct Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) and has held this role since September, 2013. She is also a visiting Professor at Chamberlain University where she instructs graduate Social Work courses and facilitates their practicum. Dr. Luguterah also serves as an adjunct advisor on final year capstone research projects (Masters Papers) in the Masters in Sustainable International Development Program, The Heller School, Brandeis University. As one of the team members for a Diversion and Reentry Program, Dr. Luguterah applies a Cognitive Behavioral Theory, a Strengths-Based Approach, and a Person in the Environment Framework to empower and guide incarcerated inmates and returning citizens to experience a paradigm shift, adjust maladaptive behaviors, improve their overall outcomes. Mercy is passionate about equitable and quality early childhood education programs and has been instrumental in supporting community members to establish 4 thriving daycare centers in Maryland."
Fahad Dogar, PhD
Fahad Dogar is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University. He completed his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University and his B.Sc. from LUMS, Pakistan. Before joining Tufts, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the systems and networking group at Microsoft Research UK. Dogar's research interests span the broad areas of networking and distributed systems, with a recent focus on data center networking and future Internet architectures. His research has been published in venues like ACM SIGCOMM, Usenix NSDI, and ACM MobiCom. His awards include a gold medal from the president of Pakistan for being the top computer science student in his undergraduate cohort.