Program Committee

Ana Cecilia Roque UCIBIO, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal https://sites.fct.unl.pt/biomolecular_eng/

Brief Bio
Ana Roque is an Associate Professor in Bioengineering at the Chemistry Department, School of Science & Technology at NOVA University (Lisbon, Portugal). Cecilia is a principal researcher at UCIBIO-NOVA and leads the Biomolecular Engineering Lab. She holds a degree in Chemical Engineering (Major in Biotechnology) & a PhD in Biotechnology from Instituto Superior Técnico, and has an Habilitation in Bioengineering from NOVA University of Lisbon. Cecilia has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge and at the Catholic University of America, a Post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology (University of Cambridge) and at INESC-MN (Lisbon, Portugal), and a visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge (2006, 2011), University of São Paulo (2015-2018), University of Nantes (2011) and City University of New York (2018). Her research focus on bioengineering, namely on the development of advanced functional materials that combineaffinity receptors with bio-based and sustainable materials for bioseparation, sensing and biomedical applications. Cecilia has been the recipient of several national and international awards, namely a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (2014). She has training from biotech entrepreneurial programs (Cambridge Entrepreneurship Center, University of Cambridge and COTEC, PT). Cecilia has published 91 papers in top journals in bioengineering, multidisciplinary and materials sciences (e.g. Adv. Funct. Materials, Scientific Reports, TIBTECH) with over 2400 citations. She edited 2 books and contributed with 9 book chapters. Her research work has also resulted in 3 international patents. Cecilia has wide experience in supervision with completed 9 postdoctoral fellows, 11 PhD students and 36 Master students. She is a member of several international societies and currently serves as a Board member (2014-2019) and Co-Chair (2019-) to the Bioengineering and Bioprocessing Division of the European Federation of Biotechnology and vice-president (2019-) of the International Society for Molecular Recognition. Cecilia has been part of organising and steering committees of several international conferences and training schools. ... More >>

Denis Gracanin Computer Science, Virginia Tech United States http://www.cs.vt.edu/~gracanin

Brief Bio
Denis Gracanin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1994. His research interests are at the intersection of human computer interaction and Internet of Things (IoT), including the design of and interactions in smart built environments (SBEs). He is interested in using eXtended reality (XR) technology to effectively interact with IoT-enabled spaces (SBEs) to support contextualized interactions and collaboration.Denis Gracanin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1994. His research interests are at the intersection of human computer interaction and Internet of Things (IoT), including the design of and interactions in smart built environments (SBEs). He is interested in using eXtended reality (XR) technology to effectively interact with IoT-enabled spaces (SBEs) to support contextualized interactions and collaboration.

Ronny Lorenz Institute for Theoretical Chemistry - Bioinformatics Group, University of Vienna Austria https://www.tbo.univie.ac.at/~ronny

Brief Bio
Ronny Lorenz is a bioinformatician who received his PhD in molecular biology at the University of Vienna in 2014. He currently holds a senior scientist position at the Department of Theoretical Chemistry of the University of Vienna, Austria. His main research interests are various algorithmic aspects in the field of RNA secondary structure prediction and the development of novel methods to simulate RNA folding kinetics. As a PI in the bi-lateral project "PaRNAssus: Deciphering Complex RNA structures by probing and interaction" (I 4520), funded in parts by the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) and the French National Research Agency (ANR), he is investigating the effect of structural motifs on experimental RNA probing data. Since 2010, he is the leading developer of the ViennaRNA Package. ... More >>

Athanasios Tsanas Usher Institute, Medical School, University of Edinburgh United Kingdom https://www.darth-group.com/thanasis-tsanas

Brief Bio
Thanasis studied Engineering for his undergraduate and MSc degrees and completed a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Oxford (2012). He continued working at the University of Oxford as a Research Fellow in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics (2012-2016), Stipendiary Lecturer in Engineering Science (2014-2016), and Lecturer in Statistical Research Methods (2016-2019); he joined the Usher Institute, Edinburgh Medical School, University of Edinburgh in January 2017 on a prestigious tenure-track Chancellor’s Fellowship. He secured tenure a year early, in December 2019, and was promoted to Associate Professor in Data Science (May 2020). Thanasis founded and leads the inter-disciplinary Data Analytics Research and Technology in Healthcare (DARTH) group (www.darth-group.com). He received the Andrew Goudie award (top PhD student across all disciplines, St. Cross, University of Oxford, 2011), the EPSRC Doctoral Prize award (2012), won the annual Physionet competition on 'Predicting mortality of ICU patients' (2012, as a key member of the Oxford biomedical engineering team) the young scientist award (MAVEBA, 2013), the EPSRC Statistics and Machine Learning award (2015), and won a ‘Best reviewer award’ from the IEEE Journal of Biomedical Health Informatics (2015). One of his research papers has been highlighted as a ‘key scientific article’ in Renewable Energy and Global Innovations, whilst some of his work has been covered in the media including Reuters. He leads the development and delivery of the 'Clinical Decision Support and Actionable Data Analytics' theme in the NHS Digital Academy, an innovative leadership programme in the UK which aims to annually train 100 CIOs and CCIOs and transform the NHS. He sits on the Editorial Boards of JMIR Mental Health and JMIR mHealth and uHealth. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. ... More >>

Nathalie Bier School of rehabilitation, Université de Montréal, Research Center of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal Canada

Brief Bio
Nathalie Bier is full professor of occupational therapy at the Université de Montréal. She is also a researcher at the Research center of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. The main goal of Nathalie Bier’s research program is to better understand the impact of cognitive deficits in aging and dementia on everyday function, as well as to develop non-pharmacological approaches to promote aging in place – such as the use of cognitive rehabilitation and new technology. She is leading major projects in the field of smart environments and connected objects for older adults with severe cognitive deficits. She has guided 62 graduated students, authored or co-authored more than 100 scientific papers and is a recognized expert in Canada and at the European level in her field. ... More >>