{"id":14368,"date":"2018-06-19T21:35:07","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T01:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/?page_id=14368"},"modified":"2026-04-06T15:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T19:09:51","slug":"advisory-board","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/people-2\/advisory-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Advisory Boards & Steering Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Advisory Board<\/h3>\n

Institute Advisory Board members are appointed by the Director in consultation with the Office of Research for two-year terms to provide feedback and strategic advice to the Director related to the overall mission of the Institute, its positioning within the university, its relationship to various academic units and programs, and its engagements with external organizations. The board reflects a diversity of leadership experiences, spanning academia, industry, government, non\u2010profits, philanthropy, and alumni.<\/span><\/p>\n

View Members<\/h4>
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\"\"Francis J. (Frank) Alexander<\/h4>\n

Director for AI Strategy and Research with a National Security Focus, Argonne National Laboratory<\/h5>\n

Frank Alexander is the Director for AI Strategy and Research with a National Security Focus at Argonne National Laboratory, where he has worked for the past two years. He has over 30 years of experience at DOE laboratories, including Los Alamos, Brookhaven, and Lawrence Livermore, where he held various scientific and leadership roles in computational and information science. Frank also has a strong connection to Boston University, having served as a research assistant professor at its Center for Computational Science earlier in his career. He holds a PhD in Physics from Rutgers University, and his current research interests include artificial intelligence, computational science and decision-making under uncertainty.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Munther Dahleh<\/h4>\n

William A. Coolidge Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/h5>\n

Munther Dahleh is the William A. Coolidge Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member MIT\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Cathy Elizabeth Minehan<\/h4>\n

Co-Chair, BWWC; Trustee, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Trustee, MITRE Corporation; Trustee, Brookings Institution<\/h5>\n

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\u2019s 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 trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\"\" Na (Lina) Li<\/h4>\n

Winokur Family Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, Harvard University<\/h5>\n

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.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

Industry Advisory Board<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Industry Advisory Board members are appointed by the Director in consultation with the Office of Research for one-year terms to provide feedback and strategic advice to the Director related the Institute\u2019s pursuit of cutting-edge research opportunities and emerging market trends within industry partners. They guide the Institute\u2019s investments in seeding and initiating new research programs at BU and in supporting the Institute\u2019s various activities and programs that are meant to nurture the BU computing community, broadly conceived. Membership represents senior leadership from a variety of businesses including healthcare, venture capital, \u00a0cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, amongst others.<\/p>\n

View Members<\/h4>
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\"\"Jianying Hu<\/h4>\n

IBM Fellow, Director of HCLS Research, Global Science Leader, AI for Healthcare at IBM<\/h5>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Rania Khalaf<\/h4>\n

Chief AI Officer, WSO2<\/h5>\n

Rania Khalaf is the Chief AI Officer at WSO2 and is based in the US. Prior to joining WSO2, she was the CIO and Chief Data Officer at Inari, a late-stage startup in ag-biotech using CRISPR and AI to create nature positive crops. She helped fundraise over USD220M and built up a comprehensive digital and AI tech function, building AI-driven gene discovery capabilities and maximizing efficiency and efficacy of Inari\u2019s product delivery pipelines. Before that, she was the Director of AI Engineering and a Distinguished Scientist at IBM Research, where she drove an exceptionally strong scientific research agenda with significant market impact. She received her PhD from the University of Stuttgart and her master\u2019s and bachelor\u2019s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Aneesh Kulkarni<\/h4>\n

Consultant (Founder and Former Chief Technology Officer, Datavant)<\/h5>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Mojgan Lefebvre<\/h4>\n

Executive Vice President, Chief Technology & Operations Officer, Travelers<\/h5>\n

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 bioM\u00e9rieux 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 \u201cWomen in Insurance Leadership\u201d award, and in 2015, she was named a \u201cWoman to Watch in Science and Technology\u201d by the Boston Business Journal.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Erik Larsen<\/h4>\n

Senior Vice President, Clinical Development & Customer Success, Sonde Health<\/h5>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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\"\" Venki Nagesha<\/h4>\n

Senior Research Scientist, Apple Siri<\/h5>\n

Venki Nagesha is a Senior Research Scientist at Apple’s Siri organization, where his current research focuses on multi-lingual speech recognition\/synthesis and natural language processing. He has been instrumental in leading the development of multi-lingual Siri and dictation solutions for top 10 Indian languages, addressing unique machine learning challenges such as code switching, lack of canonical written forms, and agglutination in both spoken & written forms. His career has witnessed the evolution of speech technology, from early statistical modeling to the modern era of Large Language Models (LLMs).<\/p>\n

Venki has also managed research teams at Nuance Communications and Dragon Systems, and previously worked at AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill. He holds degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.<\/p>\n

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\"ImageFiona Tan<\/h4>\n

Chief Technology Officer<\/span>, Wayfair<\/h5>\n

Fiona Tan is Wayfair\u2019s 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\u2019s degree in Computer Science from Stanford and a bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Jing Conan Wang<\/h4>\n

Founder of DeepVista.ai & FounderCoHo<\/h5>\n

Jing Conan Wang is the founder of DeepVista.ai, the first business context agent helping busy people get things done, backed by Zoom’s former Chief Scientist and senior Google executives. He also cofounded FounderCoHo, an active community of over 150,000 founders in Silicon Valley. Previously, he served as founding CTO at Storytell.ai and Head of AI at Intellimize (acquired by Webflow), and was a Senior Research Engineer at Google Brain\/Ads where his AI systems contributed to over $2 billion in revenue impact. He earned his PhD from the Systems Engineering department at Boston University, advised by Professor Yannis Paschalidis.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Rohit Prasad<\/h4>\n

Senior Vice President, Amazon AI<\/h5>\n

Rohit Prasad is Senior Vice President and Head Scientist for Artificial General Intelligence at Amazon. In this role, Prasad leads a team that is advancing Amazon\u2019s generative AI technologies \u2013 including Amazon\u2019s most expansive multimodal Large Language Models, Amazon Nova. Prior to that, Prasad led the development of Amazon Alexa\u2019s underlying machine learning capabilities from its inception to driving daily convenience for customers worldwide.<\/p>\n

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Steering Committee<\/h3>\n

Members of the Institute’s Steering Committee are appointed by the Office of Research to assist the Director with overall strategic planning and management of the Institute\u2019s operations. Members assist in reviewing ongoing activities, identifying and evaluating opportunities for investment of resources, developing proposals for new programs or initiatives, communicating the Institute\u2019s vision, and promoting its goals to the constituents they represent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

View Members<\/h4>
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