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Keynote Speakers
Jean-François Lamarque
Jean-François is currently the Head of Research at the Three Cairns Group, a US philanthropic organization, working on bringing the best science to enable a functional and scalable carbon credit market and accelerate solutions to address the climate crisis. Prior to this, he was the Chief Climate Scientist at SilverLining, a US-based NGO focused on safe solutions to near-term climate change. From September 2022 through January 2024, he was a Senior Expert on Climate at McKinsey & Company. Until September 2022, he was the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Climate and Global Dynamics (CGD) Laboratory Director, as well as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Chair. Until early 2018, he was the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Chief Scientist. He was a Lead Author on Chapter 8 (Radiative forcing) of IPCC AR5, published in 2013. He is the author or co-author of over 300 peer-reviewed articles and more than 100,000 citations, for which he has been recognized through the Highly Cited Researcher Award since 2016. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. He received his Ph.D.in Physics from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) in 1993, with Pr. Berger and Dr. Brasseur as joint advisors.He developed the original implementation of interactive tropospheric chemistry in the Community Earth System Model, a feature that is now fully supported and widely used in the community. His research has focused on using chemistry-climate models to understand long-term changes of short-lived climate forcers (i.e. ozone, aerosols and methane) and their impact on climate and health.
Alaa AlRadwan
Alaa AlRadwan is an interdisciplinary architect and researcher specializing in AI-driven urbanism, sustainable cooling, and smart city innovation. She is the Lab Lead of Senseable City Dubai at MIT’s Senseable City Lab, where she oversees research, strategic planning, and collaborations with government, industry, and academia to shape the future of climate-resilient cities. With a Master of Architecture from Drury University, Alaa bridges design and technology to tackle the challenges of urban livability in rapidly growing environments. Before returning to MIT, Alaa built a strong foundation in architectural practice in Kuwait, where she contributed to large-scale commercial and retail developments, including international franchise brands. She later joined Kayan, where she advanced to Head of Design, leading a team of designers, and overseeing the successful delivery of design projects across residential, retail, and hospitality sectors. Her work spanned concept development, schematic and detailed design, client engagement, and site supervision - skills that continue to define and strengthen her architectural practice. Her research and design work have been published in leading journals such as the Journal of Urban Technology and Environmental Science & Technology, and featured in global media outlets including Forbes, The Guardian, Architect Magazine. She has also delivered lectures and workshops at institutions and events such as the American University of Sharjah, the Dubai Future Foundation, and MIT’s Global Conference. Recognized in urban innovation, Alaa is committed to advancing sustainable, technology-informed design strategies that enhance livability and resilience in cities worldwide.
Anna Bershteyn
Anna Bershteyn is an Associate Professor of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Her lab uses simulation science to inform public health decision-making around large-scale threats to human health, including climate change and pandemics. She collaborates with local public health agencies, health authorities in several countries, and international agencies such as the World Health Organization. Prior to joining NYU Langone Health, Dr. Bershteyn founded and led the HIV/Tuberculosis modeling team at the Institute for Disease Modeling, now part of the Gates Foundation.
Prof. Shannon Yee
Dr. Shannon Yee is a Professor in the G.W.W. School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he directs the Scalable Thermal Energy Engineering Laboratory. Dr. Yee joined Georgia Tech in 2014 directly from his PhD at the University of California Berkeley. In the midst of his studies, he joined the US. Dept. of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) during its inaugural year as the first ARPA-E Fellow. Dr. Yee completed his MS in Nuclear Engineering in 2008 and his BS in Mechanical Engineering in 2007, both from The Ohio State University. In 2008, he was awarded a prestigious Hertz Fellowship. In 2015, Dr. Yee was selected for an AFOSR Young Investigator Award to develop polymer thermoelectrics. Dr. Yee is the recipient of the 2017 American Society of Mechanical Engineering Pi-Tau-Sigma Gold Medal award for “outstanding contributions to the field of Mechanical Engineering in the first decade of one’s career.” In 2019, Shannon was selected for an ONR Young Investigator Award to develop polymer thermal switches. Most recently, Dr. Yee has been directing the Generation 2 Reinvent the Toilet (G2RT) program and was recognized as one of Bill Gate’s Heroes in the Field in 2021. Starting 2024, Dr. Yee serves on the Board of Directors for the Materials Research Society as an elected officer.
Prof. Vasile Palade
Vasile Palade is Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science in the Centre for Computational Science and Mathematical Modelling at Coventry University, UK, where he leads the Theme on Machine Learning for Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing. He previously held academic and research positions at the University of Oxford – UK, University of Hull – UK, and the University of Galati – Romania. His main research focus is on neural networks and deep learning for computer vision and natural language processing, in the context of applications from autonomous driving and smart cities area, sensor data processing for health and environmental applications, social network data analysis, among others. Prof. Palade is an author and co-author of more than 280 papers in journals and conference proceedings as well as several books on machine learning and applications (Google Scholar). He has chaired and delivered keynote talks to reputed international conferences on machine learning and applications. He is an Associate Editor for several reputed journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, Neural Networks, Journal of Big Data, among others.