On the 7th and 8th of November, faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and Ohio State centers and institutes participated in the 2024 Interdisciplinary Research Fall Forum hosted by the Translational Data Analytics Institute. The theme for this year’s event was “AI, Policy, People, and Society”. 

This broad subject matter was broken down into discussions about national safety priorities, its impact on the justice system, how AI is fundamentally reshaping the workplace, how to correctly govern it, policy and patient preference within the medical field, and much more. Machine learning (ML) was also discussed at length regarding how to utilize it to make decisions surrounding critical human domains, such as education, healthcare, and the criminal justice system. Additionally, there was a panel discussing the recent 2024 U.S. general election.

The annual forum featured an opening by keynote speaker Elham Tabassi, Chief AI Advisor at NIST, talks by Ayanna Howard, PhD, Dean of The Ohio State University College of Engineering and Peter Mohler, PhD, Executive Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Knowledge, nine panel discussions, researcher flash talks, poster presentations given by students and postdocs, a research partner table session, networking event, and a closing awards ceremony for those involved with the student poster presentations and flash talks. 

Judges presented awards to the top three of the twenty participants who submitted entries for the student poster presentation session. Awards were also given to the top two Flash Talk presenters:

Poster Presentation Winners

1. Jenna Kline – Autonomous, Remote Sensing System for Biodiversity Monitoring
2. James Cross – Hybrid Biophysical - Machine Learning for Diurnal Estimation of Agricultural Surface Energy Fluxes
3. Ikramul Hasan – Deep Learning-Based Decadal Land Use Land Cover Mapping of Sattasniemi District of Finland Using Sentinel-2 Images

Flash Talk session Winners

1. Hanbyeol Shin – AI-Driven Weather Forecasting: Empowering Communities for Energy Sustainability
2. Mazin Marouqi – Harnessing AI to Weather the Storm: GAN-Enhanced Predictions for Power Grid Reliability

The Translational Data Analytics Institute would like to thank everyone who participated and contributed their knowledge and ideas to this year’s event, and for the constant enthusiasm in working towards creating a better environment to grow in research!

TDAI would sincerely like to thank the following faculty, postdocs, staff, and industry partners for their time and efforts:

Organizers and Participants

• Elham Tabassi – Chief AI Advisor at NIST, Associate Director for Emerging Technologies Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards & Technology
• Mikey Rayo –  Associate Professor, Integrated Systems Engineering
• Esra Gules-Guctas – Assistant Professor, John Glenn College of Public Affairs
• David Landsbergen – Associated Professor, John Glenn College of Public Affairs, Associated Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
• Ayanna Howard, PhD – Director of Engineering 
• Robert Bond – Associate Professor, Communications
• William Minozzi – Professor, Political Science
• Eric Schoon – Associate Professor, Sociology
• Ryan Kennedy – Professor, Political Science
• Brian Weeks – Associate Professor, Communication and Media, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan
• Megan LePere-Schloop – John Glenn College of Public Affairs
• Kevin De Liban – Founder, TechTonic Justice
• Michele Gilman – Venable Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Baltimore
• Andrea Contagiani – Assistant Professor, Fisher College of Business
• Hun Whee Lee – Assistant Professor, Fisher College of Business
• Xin Wen – PhD Candidate, Fisher College of Business
• Rajeev Chhajer – Chief Engineer/Research Domain Leaders – Software-defined Intelligence, Honda Research Institute USA, Inc.
• Mimi Chizever – Vice President, Technology Innovation and Organizational Strategy, Nationwide
• Dee Pai – Managing Director, CCB Chief Data Scientists, Chase 
• Dennis Hirsch – Professor, Data and Governance, College of law | Computer Science & Engineering, College of Engineering, TDAI Core Faculty
• Angie Westover-Muñoz – Program Manager, Data and Governance
• Shontael Starry – Lead Statistical Modeling and AI/ML Ethicist, Nationwide
• Matthew Reisman – Director, Privacy and Data Policy, Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL)
• Müge Fazlioglu – Principal Researcher, Privacy Law and Policy, International Association of Privacy Professionals
• Peter Mohler, PhD – Vie President for the Enterprise for Research, Innovation & Knowledge (ERIK)
• Mahdi Khalili – Assistant Professor, Computer Science & Engineering, TDAI Core Faculty
• Ferdinando Fioretto – Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Virginia
• Wujie Wen – Associate Professor, Computer Science, North Carolina State University
• Zhiqun Zuo – PhD Candidate, Computer Science and Engineering
• Lang Li – Professor and Chair, Biomedical Informatics
• Courtney Hebert – Associate Professor, Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine | Attending Physician, Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases
• Andrew Hampton – Senior Licensing Officer, AI, ML, and Digital Health, Office of Innovation and Economic Development
• John F.P. Bridges – Professor, Biomedical Informatics, Surgery
• Michael Oglesbee – Director, Infectious Diseases Institute | Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine
• Vanessa Varaljay – Chief Research Officer, Infectious Diseases Institute
• Andrew Bowman – Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine
• Jiyoung Lee – Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, College of Public Health
• Ellie Graeden – Research Professor, Center for Global Health Science and Security, Georgetown University
• Eben Kenah – Associate Professor, Biostatistics, College of Public Health
• Srinivasan Pathasarathy – Professor, Computer Science & Engineering, Biomedial Informatics, College of Engineering
• Xueru Zhang – Assistant Professor, Computer Science & Engineering
• Kun Zhang – Associate Professor, Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University
• Yuekai Sun – Associate Professor, Statistics, University of Michigan
• Bingjie Liu – Associate Professor, School of Communications