Advisory Board & Steering Committee

Munther Dahleh

William A. Coolidge Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Munther Dahleh is the William A. Coolidge Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS). Dahleh was the founding director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), serving from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2023. He was previously the associate department head of EECS. 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.

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Carolyn A. Kirk

Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative

Carolyn A. Kirk is Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (Mass Tech), a state economic development agency whose mission is to strengthen the tech & innovation economy across a variety of industries including advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, digital health and other emerging tech areas such as artificial intelligence, fintech, blue tech/marine tech, and robotics. Kirk previously served as the Deputy Secretary in the cabinet level secretariat of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. Prior to her roles in state government, in 2007 Kirk became the first woman popularly elected as Mayor of the City of Gloucester, winning three subsequent terms.

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Cathy Elizabeth Minehan

Co-chair, Boston Women’s Workforce; Director, Bright Horizons Family Solutions; Trustee, MITRE Corporation and Brookings Institution

Cathy E. Minehan is an active for profit and not for profit board member of entities engaged in major commercial activity, health care and education. Ms. Minehan retired from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in July 2007 after 39 years with the Federal Reserve System, having served as the President and Chief Executive of the Boston Bank and a member of the Federal Open Market Committee from July 1994 on. From August 2011 to June 2016, she served as Dean of the School of Management at Simmons College, known for its MBA for women and for its all on-line offerings. Ms. Minehan is a graduate of the University of Rochester and is a member of the University’s Board of Trustees. She holds an MBA from New York University and was named a distinguished Alumna from New York University in 1995. Currently, Ms. Minehan is a director of publicly traded Bright Horizons Family Solutions, and a trustee of The MITRE Corporation and the Brookings Institution. Over the past 12 years, she has been a board member of Becton Dickinson, MassMutual and VISA. After more than 10 years as chair of the Massachusetts General Hospital, she is an honorary trustee. She is co-chair of the Partners Healthcare System Institutional Conflict Committee. She is also the outside board member of the American Board of Thoracic Surgeons. Ms. Minehan is chair of the board of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and president of the National Association of Corporate Directors, New England Chapter. She is vice chair of the board of GBH and of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable. Ms. Minehan co-chairs the Boston Women’s Workforce Council which works to end gender and racial wage gaps in Boston. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was named the Public Company Director of the Year by the NACD New England Chapter in 2012; NACD National Top 100 Directors in 2013; and 2015 Shattuck City Champion (Boston). She is the recipient of many other honors and distinctions.

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Na (Lina) Li

Winokur Family Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, Harvard University

Na (Lina) Li is the Winokur Family Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at Harvard University. Li is also Cofounder and Scientific Advisor of Singularity Energy, Inc. She has held a variety of short-term visiting appointments including the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, MIT, and Google Brain. Her research lies in the control, learning, and optimization of networked systems, including theory development, algorithm design, and applications to real-world cyber-physical systems such as energy systems and bio-medical systems. She has been an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Systems & Control Letters, IEEE Control Systems Letters, and served on the organizing committee for a few conferences. She received the NSF Career Award (2016), AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2017), ONR Young Investigator Award(2019), Donald P. Eckman Award (2019), McDonald Mentoring Award (2020), the IFAC Manfred Thoma Medal (2023), along with some other awards.

Jianying Hu

IBM Fellow, Director of HCLS Research, Global Science Leader, AI for Healthcare at IBM

Jianying Hu, Ph.D., is an IBM Fellow, Director of HCLS Research, and Global Science Leader of AI for Healthcare at IBM. She is also Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Hu joined IBM in 2003 after working at Bell Labs. She has over 30 years of experience conducting and leading research on machine learning, with recent focus on AI enabled acceleration of scientific discovery in health. Dr. Hu has served on many editorial and advisory boards, and currently serves on the NASEM Committee on Establishing a Framework for Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation in Health and Medicine, and the External Advisory Board of the NIH AIM-AHEAD Program. Dr. Hu is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, IEEE, and the International Association of Pattern Recognition.

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Rania Khalaf

Chief Information and Data Officer, Inari

Rania Khalaf is Chief Information and Data Officer at Inari where she is responsible for the engineering, data, AI and IT capabilities at the foundation of Inari’s cutting-edge SEEDesign™ technology platform. She has an extensive track record of leading and delivering award-winning innovation in cloud-native AI platforms, human-centered AI, serverless computing and web services. Rania joined Inari from IBM Research, most recently as Director of AI Platforms, where she led the global AI-Infused Automation research strategy and oversaw the creation and launch of innovation in multiple new and existing AI-driven products. She received her doctorate from the University of Stuttgart and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Niki Kouri-Maglaras

Chief Digital Officer of International Businesses, Prudential Financial

In her role as the Chief Digital Officer at Prudential International, Niki is reimagining customer, agent and partner experiences creating and executing on growth strategies at the intersection of digital, marketing and technology. Prior to joining Prudential, Niki spent more than 20 years in financial services and management consulting leadership positions (Citi, Deloitte) running businesses and teams in both functional and P&L roles. Niki holds a master’s degree in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece.

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Aneesh Kulkarni

Consultant (Founder and Former Chief Technology Officer, Datavant)

Aneesh Kulkarni is the former Chief Technology Officer of Datavant, a company Kulkarni cofounded in 2017 where he led engineering & security functions prior to Datavant’s combination with Ciox in 2021. Kulkarni has a track record of building high-performing engineering teams. Earlier in his career, Kulkarni was a data science leader at Lyft, and an engineer at Microsoft. He holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard in Applied Mathematics, and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

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Mojgan Lefebvre

Executive Vice President, Chief Technology & Operations Officer, Travelers

Mojgan Lefebvre is Executive Vice President, Chief Technology & Operations Officer for Travelers. She joined Travelers in October 2018 with over two decades of experience successfully leading both employee- and customer-facing technologies. Prior to Travelers, Mojgan spent eight years at Liberty Mutual, where she was most recently Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the Global Risk Solutions business. Previously, she held leadership positions across a variety of industries, from medical device company bioMérieux to strategy consulting firm Bain. Mojgan earned her undergraduate degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2017, she was honored by Digital Insurance with a “Women in Insurance Leadership” award, and in 2015, she was named a “Woman to Watch in Science and Technology” by the Boston Business Journal.

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Erik Larsen

Senior Vice President, Clinical Development & Customer Success, Sonde Health

Erik Larsen is Senior Vice President, Clinical Development & Customer Success at Sonde Health, a digital health company developing vocal biomarker solutions for health & wellness tracking. His experience includes research and management at several leading technology and life science organizations including Decibel Therapeutics (now part of Regeneron), McKinsey & Co, and Philips Electronics. Erik received a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from MIT and MSc degrees in Applied Physics (Delft University) and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (MIT).

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Fiona Tan

Chief Technology Officer, Wayfair

Fiona Tan is Wayfair’s Chief Technology Officer, and oversees a global innovation team responsible for creating market-leading experiences through its world-class e-commerce platform. Prior to Wayfair, Fiona served as senior vice president of U.S. Technology at Walmart where she was responsible for innovation and engineering execution spanning its site, mobile app and all associate and merchant-facing technology across its e-commerce and stores business in the U.S. Her prior roles at Walmart include senior vice president of Customer Technology and vice president of Engineering. Prior to Walmart, Fiona served in a number of leadership roles at Ariba, where she led a global engineering organization responsible for the strategy, lifecycle, and delivery of the Ariba Commerce Network, as well as TIBCO Software. Fiona has a master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.

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